Rampage
by lilgizzy1983
Summary: Picking up where my previous story "Repercussions" left off. Team Arrow now has to deal with the danger of Slade back in their lives, along with solving a new mystery that involves Felicity personally. *Suggested read Repercussions to understand better* T on the verge of M. Olicity, new relationship, established. Slow Burn Storyline with action and character death.
1. Chapter 1

A/N This is a sequel to REPERCUSSIONS, if you haven't read that one yet then you might be a little lost. But I mean, read away if you so desire!

Also, I clearly don't own Arrow.

RAMPAGE

CHAPTER 1 "Just the Beginning"

When Felicity opened her eyes, she wasn't in her own bedroom, but she wasn't in Oliver's room either. It seemed familiar, but she was too groggy to place it. Had she passed out from the drugs? Was she hallucinating? What the hell was happening? She leaned up from her position in bed and looked around. It was dark but she knew Oliver wasn't there with her. As she slowly got up her heart started pounding against her chest when she realized her arm didn't hurt. When she looked down there was no bandage.

"What the fuck….?" She said quietly to herself, as she reached for a light and flipped a switch.

When the room lit up she had to put her hands over her mouth to keep for screaming. It WAS her room. But not her bedroom in her apartment, her old bedroom from her mother's house when she was a kid. It was completely unchanged, down to the pictures on the nightstand of her and her mother, and one of her and her father. She didn't really have any friends…ever. She walked over and picked up the picture of her father, wondering what Slade could have known about him.

Felicity decided she was confused enough, and swiftly walked over to the door to figure out what was happening. When she opened it, she stumbled, and almost fell down a concrete flight of stairs. This definitely wasn't her old house. Where was she? WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON!?

As her words echoed she realized she said them out loud. But when she looked up again she saw computer screens. She knew where she was. There was a noise, and all of the sudden the lights flickered on revealing the Foundry. How did she get here? The first thing she registered was Oliver on the med bay table. Like the first time she was here, he didn't have a shirt and was shot, covered in blood. She ran up to him, but he was unconscious.

"Oliver!" She yelled, scrambling for bandages and monitors, but not finding any.

"Diggle! HELP! OLIVER WAKE UP! WHAT'S HAPPENING!" Felicity yelled helplessly, finally resorting to simply pressing her hands down on the wound. But the blood seeped through her fingers, it ran everywhere. She couldn't stop it.

The alarm to the door beeped once, alerting her to someone's presence.

"Oh thank god! DIGGLE!?" She yelled again.

"Oh, don't you wish little Felicity Who." An accented voice boomed from the steps.

She whipped up at the voice. She knew the nickname, but it was coming from the wrong voice! She hadn't heard that nickname since she was 8 years old. It was the last memory she had of her father. Her mother had been on the phone with him, and was screaming and yelling. When her mom threw the phone to the ground and stomped away in anger, 8 year old Felicity picked it up. It was her father's voice on the other end. When he realized it was her, he called her by her old nickname Felicity Who. He said he loved her, and then said goodbye and simply hung up.

Slade was now face to face with her. How did he know that nickname, she never spoke of it to anyone?

"You seem a little out of your depth little girl." Slade said, as he grabbed her arm and yanked her away from Oliver's dying body.

"NO! He needs help! Please! OLIVER!" She screamed and tried to wriggle away but couldn't budge.

Slade didn't say a word. He just held her back and listened to her screaming, her hands covered in Oliver's blood. They watched as blood poured from Oliver and he stopped breathing, laying still for minutes until Slade finally released her. She ran over almost falling on top of Oliver, not knowing what to do. Why couldn't she figure out what to do!?

"This isn't over Felicity Who. It's just the beginning." Slade said as he walked away, up the stairs. She just sobbed over Oliver's lifeless body.

All the sudden, she felt a hand over her mouth, and pain in her neck. She was turned around by the unseen assailant, only to come face to face with Count Vertigo. His sickening, evil smirk only a couple of inches from her face. She started to feel heavy. He must have drugged her, she couldn't move her arms or feet. He laughed as he pulled a chair over, and sat her down. Blocking her view of Oliver with his body, he leaned over her, touching her hair, her face, any place he wanted. She couldn't stop him. She couldn't even scream, anytime she tried it only came out as a whimper. His hands came to a rest on her upper thighs, his fingers just barely resting under her skimpy sleep shorts. She would never be wearing THEM again.

"stop…" was all she could get out through whatever drug he dosed her with. As she said it, he came closer to her face, reached one hand up, and grabbed her by the hair pulling her head back painfully to face him. He gave her that disgusting grin again before leaning down, and placing his lips on top of hers violently. All she could do was cry for the few seconds it lasted. It seemed like hours. She wanted to throw up.

All of the sudden something smacked the Count in the head, and he dropped next to her to the ground. She struggled to look up again, but finally saw Diggle standing in front of her. Felicity let out a relieved exhale, but couldn't say anything. She was too overwhelmed by the drugs. Diggle was speaking to her but she couldn't understand was he was saying. As she looked around, she realized they were no longer in the lair but in her office at Queen Consolidated, where her initial encounter with the Count had happened.

"Felicity…can you hear me?" she finally heard Diggle say. Looking up at his eyes, she nodded.

"Yeah, I'm ok. Thank you John." Felicity said as she lifted her hand and placed it on his arm. When did she gain the ability to move again?

"John, I'm so confused. What happening?" she whimpered out quickly.

"You're ok. Now you're safe." He said, but it seemed as if it was from a distance. She was confused again. If he was standing right there, why did he sound so far away? It didn't even sound like John.

As she furrowed her brow in frustration, she heard a sound she couldn't place, and Diggle stilled for a moment.

"Digg…?" She squeaked out before he fell over to the side. Behind him stood Slade again, in a terrible two-toned mask. John had 3 arrows in his back.

"NO! JOHN!" Felicity screamed as she jumped off the chair down to her knees to where Diggle lay lifeless.

She looked up at Slade, terrified. He had just killed her best friend. Her big brother. Oliver was dead. She had no way to contact Sara or Roy. She felt so helpless, and didn't know what to do. He'd won.

"This is just the beginning, Felicity Who." Slade said as he walked out of her condo. When did they get to her condo? As she looked down, she was kneeling in a large pool of blood. At first, she thought it belonged to Diggle, but when she looked to where he had been laying, it wasn't him staring lifeless back at her. It was herself. Felicity stared into her own open lifeless eyes. Three arrows in her, covered in blood. Her chest and arm suddenly started burning with fury, as she looked down, they too, were covered in blood, and her original wounds had returned with a vengeance. When she went to turn away, she just saw Oliver laying on the med bay table. She turned again to see Sara and Roy both laying on the ground in the club, bullet holes in their heads. She closed her eyes and screamed, not able to get out of the nightmare surrounding her.

"FELICITY! YOU'RE SAFE! WAKE UP! HEY! FELICITY! WAKE UP!" It was Oliver's voice. How was he there? It must be a trick, she thought.

"NO! YOU'RE DEAD! NO!" She yelled keeping her eyes closed. Struggling to move.

"FELICITY IT'S ME, OLIVER! I'M NOT DEAD I'M RIGHT HERE! OPEN YOUR EYES!" He yelled, but tried not to scare her. He was only yelling so she could here him over her own voice.

"STOP! NOOO! GET AWAY!" She yelled again hysterically. She tried to open her eyes but couldn't, all she could see were the images of their dead bodies staring up at her. All she could feel was the pain in her chest and arm, as she fought to get away from whatever was holding her down.

Wait a minute, something was holding her down. Why? She couldn't figure it out.

She heard another voice.

"Back off Ollie, let me try, you're scaring her." It was a female voice. She felt the weight on her shift but not leave. She couldn't move.

"Hey Felicity, shhh shhhh it's ok, open your eyes. Open your eyes, sweety. It was a bad dream. You had a nightmare. Hey, can you hear me? Felicity, open your eyes and look at me." The voice said softly, closer to her ear. She felt someone touch her face softly. It felt nice but startled her so she jolted away, opening her eyes with quick blink. Suddenly nothing was in focus as it was before. Everything was blurry and watery. She felt tears on her face, and saw figures but could make them out. She was breathing heavily, and making that whimpering noise that she hated every time she exhaled. Felicity blinked a couple of times to get her vision straightened out. Though still a little blurry, she could make out Thea in front of her. Confused she whipped her head to her left, and saw Oliver. Alive. Holding her arms down across her body, keeping her from moving. She started to struggle, and he loosened his grip just slightly upon seeing her eyes.

"Hey, hey Felicity, you're ok. I'm sorry, I don't want you to reinjure yourself." He said to her with unshed tears in his eyes. He looked heartbroken, and it melted her instantly.

Felicity blinked again to regain control. It had been a dream. She had been dreaming. Nothing that happened was real. She took a few deep breaths, but couldn't stop the tears, they had slowed, but were still running down her face. She saw not only Thea and Oliver, but Moira, Roy, and Diggle now in the room. She assumed the two boys had stayed over for extra protection.

"Are you awake, are you ok?" Thea asked carefully. Again, not wanting to do anything to scare her more.

Felicity nodded her head slightly and looked at Oliver again with pleading eyes. Her chest and shoulder burning terribly from the position.

"Can I let you go? Are you ok?" He asked, calmer than before, but still with an edge to his tone.

"Please." She said, first conscious words this morning.

"It hurts." She added waveringly.

"I'm so sorry Felicity, I know that had to have been painful, but you were flailing around, I didn't want you to…" He rambled, immediately letting go of her arms as she turned, and cradled her left arm with her right hand.

"No… I'm sorry. I woke you guys up. I'm sorry. It was just.." She started, but started to choke back tears again.

Thea spoke this time.

"It's ok. Felicity look here, it's ok. It's over. It's all over." Thea consoled. Careful not to touch Felicity again, just in case she was still startled.

"It's not over though. It's not over…it's just the beginning." Felicity said, repeating Slade's words from her nightmare. They all just looked at her with worried confusion.

But she was right. Their real life nightmare would soon be in full swing.


	2. Chapter 2

CHAPTER 2 "Mysteries Must Be Solved"

The next week flew by as the team tried to get any and all information they could on Slade, his possible associates, and also Felicity's father's possible connection. It took Felicity almost two days to kick Oliver out of the mansion and go out to resume Arrow activities. The security staff, including Oliver, Diggle, and Roy, were all extremely apprehensive to even let Felicity out of the mansion considering Slade had blatantly threatened her. They had settled for letting her walk around the grounds, and swim in the pool outside, with much convincing on her part, and with armed security at all times.

She wasn't exactly happy with the restrictions, but she understood. Felicity didn't admit it, but even she was rattled by what Slade had said to her.

Her other stipulation was that her equipment be moved to a room in the mansion so she could run her searches and programs looking into Slade and her father. She knew none of the others would get anywhere. Though thoroughly impressed with Moira's Private Detective's research skills, Felicity preferred to do her searches on her own. She felt like she was controlling something.

After the week, Felicity's arm finally felt a little bit better. She was finally able to work more than an hour with her hand, thankfully. Unfortunately, she still had physical therapy coming in around lunchtime 5 days a week. They'd always yell at her about overuse, and cut the sessions short. It's not like she could do much after typing all morning any way. It was getting easier day to day, but she was always exhausted and in some pain by later afternoon. Still feeling the after effects of the blood loss, and her chest wound healing, she rarely made it past 9 pm before she conked out wherever she was in the mansion. Usually it was on the couch with Oliver before he would go out, or in "her office" waiting for the searches to be done.

Oliver had carried her to bed every night for 5 nights in a row, before finally making her take a day off to rest. That day, Thea took off as well to keep her company outside on the back terrace. They spent most of the sunny day drinking lemonade and eating terrible, yet wonderful, comfort food, and bonding like little girls over their past, and boys…Oliver. Felicity had never had females friends and this was new and enlightening territory for her. She was always enamored by Thea's wild stories. Her only stories of interest involved Oliver and the Arrow. Once in a while Felicity would share one off stories about when her mother made her hang out in the back room of the club she where she waited tables. The showgirls would teach her about men, or makeup, or how to fix a torn feather dress.

When Thea was taken aback by the mention of showgirls, Felicity laughed and explained they lived in Vegas for a while. After her father left they didn't really have much to live on. Her mother had waited tables in their old home town, but eventually decided she could make more money in Vegas clubs when Felicity was about 10, so they moved out there. After that it was all Thea could talk about, until she realized that some of the questions would make Felicity noticeably uncomfortable, and tactfully changed subjects. Thea did however discover the mystery of Felicity's wardrobe choices and makeup.

The second Felicity mentioned Vegas Thea blurted out "Ah HA! That explains EVERYTHING!"

Felicity was shocked, "What?! What do you mean?"

"You're style is WAY to eccentric and refined to have been a simple girl from MIT. They don't teach you that kind of stuff at tech school, and DEFINITELY not in Cambridge."

This gave Felicity a good laugh. "I didn't realize it was that noticeable, it's just how I've always dressed since I was a teenager and could make my own money…without my mom taking it from me…"

Thea looked confused. "What do you mean 'taking it from you'? Explain sister."

Felicity quirked her eyebrows at the nickname. But fiddled her thumbs before continuing. Something about Thea's young, curious, goodhearted nature made Felicity a little bit more comfortable opening up about her past. A LITTLE being the operative word!

"Achem, well, I built my first computer when I was like 7. My mom was not happy when she saw the mess, but I think it had more to do with my brain. From what I understand from some of her rantings, my father was really smart too, and she didn't like that I was anything like him. Once I was 10 I started sneaking out after school and going to internet cafes, making money by building tech and selling it online. My teenage hacker friend would cash the checks for me and I'd hide it in my room. When my mom found out she turned my room upside down and took all the money. Who knows what she did with it, by that time she was HIGHLY unstable. I don't know how she kept her job. It seemed for a while she was able to hold it together at work, but then she'd usually unload all of her pent up crazy on me later." She cleared her throat, stopping there with the details. She didn't know why she'd said all of that to Thea, who she just noticed had started holding her hand. Felicity gently pulled her hand back, suddenly uncomfortable with the physical contact, remembering her past made that hard sometimes.

Deciding to quickly finish up her story, she stammered out the rest quickly.

"By the time I was 14 I made a fake ID, made a bank account in the Caymen's under a fake name, and continued working on the side to save up for tuition for college. I was accepted to MIT by 16, and graduated with my Masters by 21. That's when I moved here and started working for QC. I still don't think my mom knows where I live. She didn't really understand much of what I was telling her last time we spoke…I…she…we had to put her away a while back." Felicity finished, taking a deep breath and staring at the intricate tile work on the patio.

Thea stared for a few moments, in awe of the strength of the young woman in front of her. Felicity not being too much older than herself, but having seen so much. Aware of the fact that touching made her uncomfortable right now, but ignoring it, Thea gently placed a couple fingers on Felicity's chin and turned her head to meet her eyes. They seemed far away, like she was explaining someone else's life.

"Hey, listen to me. You're a good person. You deserve to be happy. You did what you had to do to survive, and to get where you belonged. There was nothing you could do about your mom. You got out. And you have us, you have Ollie." Thea said sincerely, trying her damndest to break through Felicity's tough exterior. Felicity just stared at her for a couple of seconds not knowing how to respond, until finally her walls kicked back into place. She suddenly pulled away slightly, and put on a fake nervous smile. She started to shuffle to get up hastily.

"OK, I think the sun is getting to me. I should head inside and check for updates. I've had enough of a day off. It's getting late and we're no closer to finding…" Felicity started mumbling but was cut off by Thea standing as well.

"Whoa, down girl, it's your day off! Ollie would strangle me if he knew I let you sit at the desk for one second." Thea urged.

"No, I…I have to…I don't…I have to do something…else." Felicity started babbling, not used to this situation.

"Hey, sit, relax, how about I grab you a water from inside and leave you be for a little bit?" Thea insisted, putting her hands up in surrender mode. Felicity still looked hesitant, ready to run.

"OK look, it's a nice day, enjoy it. How about I go like…shop or something? I'll buy us a bunch of new clothes and shoes and we'll fashion show for each other later? Eh? Ehhh?" Thea tried to turn around the conversation with bribery. It worked. Felicity sat back down slowly.

"Good. Thank goodness. You almost gave me a panic attack girl. NO MOVING!" Thea commanded, finally eliciting a giggle from Felicity.

"Relax, Ollie would never do anything to you, you're his baby sister." Felicity reminded Thea. "Now, go, get me a new white dress. I don't have one anymore and I really liked it. I could match it with any shoes I wanted. It was always a glorious day when I wore it….you know…except that one day."

"One, new white dress coming up. I'm gonna make it sexy. You always wear sexy well. You never look cheap, just always….you know…sexy. What am I talking about? I'll be back with that water and be on my way. Sorry about all that stuff. I'll bribe you to make you feel better for days after this." Thea said nervously as she immediately hurried inside to the kitchen.

Felicity just rolled her eyes. She could see before why Oliver adored her so much, but now she felt almost, like a little sister. Kind of. With what happened the week prior with her nightmares (that had continued for days) and today, Felicity suddenly felt close to Thea. Having no close female friends in her teen and adult years thus far, it was a refreshing perspective to have 'girl talk'. She didn't fully know what it was all about until just now.

She actually felt better for having talked about her mom some. Lighter in some way. Like she had less of a burden. Yes, it was hard, but that's how you build relationships. Take Oliver for example. It was so hard for him to open up at all about the island. But once he started giving pieces away, he did it more often and was less tense about it. Especially with her, recently. They'd talked a lot over the last couple of weeks about things they'd never shared with anyone. Her less open than him…but she suspects it's because he's trying to pulled stuff out of her by sharing his own past demons. Little by little, Felicity was opening up to him. However, to share something with Thea was a huge step for her. Maybe she WAS starting to feel like she had more than just Oliver and Diggle as family. After all, everyone has seen her at her worst, it can only get better from here, right?

**BOOM**

Felicity was knocked out of her chair, and a force threw her from the terrace to the grass out back. Luckily, she landed on her back and not her left side, but it still smarted. Her ears were ringing and she could barely hear anything but buzzing. Her heart was pounding as she got up and looked over to where the blast came from. It looked to be the east side of the mansion, not far from where she was sitting. It was where the garage was.

"THEA!" She screamed as she realized Thea was likely heading to her car. Then she heard another muffled, unfamiliar voice.

"MS. SMOAK! WE HAVE TO GET YOU OUT OF HERE! IT'S NOT SAFE!" She turned toward the sound barely able to hear what he was saying. It was one of the security guards, she recognized him from around the house.

"NO! THEA IS IN THERE! SHE WAS HEADING TOWARD HER CAR!" Felicity cried out as still couldn't hear correctly. She felt her eyes burning, but wasn't sure if it was the smoke or tears. Probably both.

She jumped up, having a head start on the guard, and started running toward the house screaming Thea's name. The guard was trying to catch up but was about 20 yards away from her when she ran inside towards the smoke. There was shattered glass everywhere and she was glad she was at least wearing her sneakers that day. Felicity could only get so far towards the garage when a collapsed wall blocked her path. She started running around to the front of the house to the other entrance when she finally spotted Thea. She was laying in the foyer, sprawled amongst the broken glass and shattered pieces of expensive furniture.

"THEA! THEA!" Felicity screamed as she started to run over. She stumbled over some piece of wood and almost fell, but caught herself with her hand, cutting it on some glass. Not even registering, she kept heading towards Thea. She was dizzy from the blast and the smoke, but finally reached her and knelt down to check for injuries. Besides a few slight burns and some cuts from the glass she seemed to be ok. She probably got knocked out when she hit her head on the ground in the blast. Carefully feeling the back of Thea's head, she didn't feel any blood. That was good. With her muffled hearing she didn't hear the guard run up behind her and was startled when he touched her arm.

She didn't even know what she started screaming at him, she didn't remember later anyway. All she could think about was getting Thea to wake up, and getting to the Foundry for safety. She knew Moira was out that day doing something or other, and Oliver and Diggle were at the club. Before she knew it there were more than 6 guards in the foyer with them. One calling 911, another yelling something at her with frantic arms.

Felicity was just focused on Thea's face, lightly tapping her cheek and yelling her name. Finally, Thea's eyes blinked open suddenly and she gasped. Starting to choke on the thickening smoke, Thea struggled to breathe. Felicity noticed her own coughs and lightheadedness increasing as well.

"Hey! Thea, you ok? Can you move?" Felicity yelled over the guards muffled voices.

Thea just slowly sat up with Felicity's help and moving slowly, shook her head. Still struggling with breathing properly, Thea stood slowly with Felicity and now another guard at her side. They all proceeded out the front door as quickly as possible, with some of them injured and bleeding. Thea was just noticing the burns on her arms when Felicity was setting her on the front grass.

"You're ok, they are nothing, ok?" Felicity assured the girl, seeing the look of fear and pain in her eyes.

"Listen! They are fine! Nothing a little cream and bandages won't get rid of. It won't even scar, ok!?" Felicity continued, hoping she was telling the truth. Thea just looked up at her scared and reached up to touch the side of her face looking confused. Felicity pulled back and Thea yanked her hand back to reveal blood on her fingers. Felicity put her on hand up and felt blood on her face and ear. It was on the left side too. She was guessing Thea got most of the 'blast', and she got most of the 'boom'.

"It's fine, just relax ok. I'm going to call Ollie and get him to come get us ok?" Felicity reassured Thea. Thea just nodded and coughed again. Felicity didn't like that she wasn't speaking. She wasn't sure if it was shock, or the smoke, or (hopefully not) a head injury. She looked up at the guards and screamed for a phone. She wasn't sure if one of them had called Oliver yet, but she needed to talk to him if she was going to ever calm down. They were in the open. Exposed. It made Felicity more nervous than she cared to admit, especially knowing someone had gotten in to the garage without them knowing. One of the guards tossed a phone at her and she dropped it immediately, giving him a stern look. Did she look like a basketball player? Seriously?

Picking it up, she realized it's because her hands were shaking, and she had a cut on her right hand from the glass. It wasn't bad, but the blood on the phone reminded her of that day weeks ago. Before she knew it, Thea was taking the phone out of her hand. The action made her blink, and she didn't know how long she'd been holding it and staring, because Thea was now sitting up next to her, fully alert.

Felicity just looked at her, trying to make out the muffled words she was saying. Thea then dialed Oliver's number and put it on speaker for them. Felicity was relieved Thea seemed to be ok, just a little shell-shocked. She is now realizing that she herself may be shell-shocked as well. She also still felt a little dizzy, even though she was out of the smoke filled house. Maybe running around in the house earlier wasn't that great of an idea, but she hadn't been thinking about that. She heard Oliver's voice start speaking. His tone panicked, but she had a hard time making out all the words. Thea she could understand better.

"OLLIE! There was an explosion at the house. Probably a car bomb or something. It was in the garage. *Oliver said something muffled* No we're ok. Well, as well as can be expected. I'm pretty sure Felicity can't hear everything right now, she seems to have gotten an earful from the blast." Thea explained as Felicity tapped her on the shoulder and gave her a stern look.

"Hey? Right here!" Felicity scolded.

"Felicity, can you honestly say you can hear everything we are saying?" Thea gave it right back.

Felicity made a face that almost seemed like a pout.

"You, kind of, Oliver…not so much." Felicity acquiesced.

"Yeah then shut up, Ollie, we are exposed out her. She's in the open, we need to get to you. Or we need Roy here or something." Thea explained again. But all Felicity could hear on the other line was muffled yelling. Thea looked up at her confused face.

"It's ok, I can't understand what he's saying either." Thea explained, as it was clear now that Oliver had put the phone to his side and was yelling instructions. Then his voice was louder, but still muffled to Felicity.

"OK, we'll sit tight. The guards are all here. Just hurry!" Thea hung up. She threw the phone back at the guard a lot harder than he had thrown it at Felicity, making an angry face at him. Then she looked back at Felicity and winked. They were on there own, on the lawn, for the 10 minutes it would take Oliver to get here from the glades on his Ducati.

Unfortunately, they only had 3 minutes before the shooting started.

A/N Sorry about the cliffhanger, but it had to be done. The chapter was getting long and I want everything else to play out at one time. I was feeling all mushy with the feels, so I guess my brain decided it needed some action haha. I literally didn't plan any of this. I feel like my brain just gets into writing mode, then I get lost in the story. It's like I'm reading it for the first time as I type it, like you guys. Enjoy!

JAG


	3. Chapter 3

CHAPTER 3 "Firing Squad"

Only a few short minutes after Thea hung up with Oliver, the last guards finally exited the mansion giving the all clear. Thea had spotted Raisa on the other side of the lawn and waved her over to them. The older cook/nanny had taken care of both Oliver and Thea when they were young and still takes pride in who they've become. She always glances at Felicity with knowing eyes when she thinks Felicity can't see her. Felicity doesn't mind though, she likes Raisa. Plus, her homemade pasta is to DIE for.

As the last guard exited and gathered to the meet point, Felicity noticed one of the guards put his hand up to his ear. At first she thought he had the same problem as her and couldn't hear properly, but then she noticed he didn't have any dust or burns on him. No soot. Nothing to indicate he had been near the blast. Then she noticed his lips moving. That's when it clicked, he had an ear piece. She had instructed Oliver to have his guards forego earpieces because the ones they were using weren't entirely secure, and she had new ones on order. In the meantime, they were only supposed to use disposable cell phones that she had modified herself last Friday. She turned to Thea and gave her a warning look. Thea leaned closer inconspicuously towards Felicity.

"Guard, our 2 o'clock. Black hair. What is he saying can you hear him?" Felicity whispered as best she could. Thea shook her negative but stayed silently. Felicity nodded at her and glanced over at Raisa. She nodded her head back towards the door to the mansion slightly, then over at the guard. As Raisa followed Felicity's glance up toward the guard he looked up, and noticed them. His face dropped, he instantly yelled something into his earpiece and pulled out his gun pointing it at Raisa.

Felicity predicted his move, jumped over and knocked Raisa to the ground as his bullet wizzed by them. Another guard tackled him instantly, forcing a second gun shot rang, missing everyone completely. Felicity jumped up helping Raisa, ears ringing painfully again from the shots. She glanced back to make sure Thea was with them and the three of them hauled ass towards the mansion's main entrance, back into the semi damaged building. They heard a vehicle pull up outside in the driveway behindthem, but didn't turn back to see who it was. They knew it wasn't Oliver's motorcycle. As they got into the house they heard all hell break lose outside, and the sound of massive gunfire ignited in the air.

Running up the steps, assuming the gunmen would clear the first floor first, they headed towards Felicity's office, hoping it was still in tact and with power. Thankfully, she had hacked everything into a second power grid so she didn't brown out the whole house with her servers and searches.

They quietly shut the door behind the three of them and started to move the old heavy dresser over. It took all three of them, but Felicity had to push with her back, as both of her hands were now cut and hurting. Once that was done, Raisa and Thea listen for more gunfire, which was sporadic, but not moving closer yet, as Felicity jumped on her computer to shut down power to the parts of the house that still had it. She overloaded the power grid to their area and blew everything out except for her monitors. She kind of felt sorry for any neighbors in the area, but she couldn't think about that right now. They kept the window curtains closed in order to keep anyone from seeing them. Felicity sent an alert to Oliver, Digg, Roy and Sara's phones telling him where they were and the situation. Then she also sent an alert to Lance informing him of the gunmen and the explosion, hoping that they wouldn't come in with a bunch of first responders expecting just an explosion.

They heard noises, probably on the stairs, lots of stomping and yelling. Well, Raisa and Thea heard them and turned. Felicity noticed and just glanced over in that direction. As painful as the ringing in her ears was, she was almost glad she didn't have the outside distraction. She was trying to hack into their comm. link. If it was like her old comms, she could definitely get in on their frequency. Being careful to turn off her computer speakers, she started searching for the frequency. There were more than a few being used in this neighborhood. 'Damn rich people and their security teams!' Felicity thought angrily to herself, noting the irony that they in fact had one.

"come onnn come onnn…" she whispered as she started to sense Thea and Raisa's panic growing. She instantly felt a hand over her mouth and Thea whipped her around. Holding a finger to her mouth to silence Felicity, she realized the situation was more dire than she even thought. Turning back in her chair to the frequencies, she had an idea as she looked at the frequencies splayed on her screen. She quietly reached into her desk drawer, and pulled out headphones and a note pad. As she quickly plugged in the headphones, Thea looked at her from behind confused. Felicity handed Thea the headphones and motioned to put them on. She then wrote on the notepad. 'AUSTRALIAN ACCENT?". Thea shook her head no. Felicity moved to a different frequency, and glanced at Thea. No. Trying again in frustration and looking at Thea, Thea's face lit up like a Christmas tree and she gave an enthusiastic thumbs up! Felicity fist pump in the air, consciously skipping the 'YES!' that normally goes with it. Thea rolled her eyes and motioned to hurry, the flinched towards the door. Felicity didn't have to hear it, she felt the shudder against her desk, as their attackers started banging on the door. She concentrated on opening up her filter program and dumping in the recorded frequency file. She got the green light from the program, and started typing in various instructions. All the while she felt the vibrations increase from the pounding. She hit a button and turned to Thea pointing at her own ears indictating to listen in the headphones. Thea was confused at first, but startled with what she heard, frantically nodding her head yes when the recording finished. Felicity jumped back into work, shutting off the original frequency and seemlessly patching her system into the frequency, playing her computer doubled, Slade voice. As she typed, Thea heard Slade's voice speaking Felicity's words to his men.

"FALL BACK. TARGETS ARE SCARED ENOUGH. I'LL COME BACK FOR THEM MYSELF SOON. STAND DOWN AND GET OUT BEFORE REINFORCEMENTS ARRIVE."

Felicity turned towards Thea and Raisa, who were looking towards the door. Thea with the headphones still on. The banging had stopped, but the girls still looked worried. When Thea started shaking her head 'No', Felicity grunted and turned back to the computer.

"FOLLOW MY PLAN! I HIRED YOU, NOW DO WHAT I SAY! FALL BACK OR I'LL REPLACE YOU WITH A TEAM THAT LISTENS! AND YOU KNOW HOW I FEEL ABOUT WITNESSES!"

Felicity turned back around to Thea, who looked tense for another few seconds before visibly relaxing. Taking off the headphones, she gave them back to Felicity. Then, she immediately pulled her into a tight hug. Pulling back, she fist pumped in the air to Felicity and said "YES!". Felicity laughed. She realized that her hearing was just muffled again instead of ringing.

"Oh thank Google."

"What?" Thea asked.

"It's muffled again. Woo hoo!" Felicity said.

"Hey, Raisa? You hear that?" Thea asked turning.

"Master Queen!" Raisa exclaimed at the sound of his Ducati finally pulled up the front of the house.

The three girls took a minutes to slowly inch the dresser out of the way of the door again. Or what used to be a door. They had pretty much gotten through the entire door and had even damaged the dresser. Felicity realized how terrifying the sound must have been for the other two girls.

"OLLIE!" Thea screamed when they opened the door and ran down the hall.

"THEA! FELICITY!" They heard him yell from the stairs.

"OLLIE! We're ok! We're here!" They met at the top of the stairs and Thea almost toppled Oliver over. Raisa hung back and let him hug Felicity next. He looked at her ears worriedly and asked if she was ok.

"Oh my god I'm so glad I can hear what you're saying. Barely, but I can hear it. I'll be ok." She spoke a little too loudly and he smiled at her tightly, seeing in her face that she had been scared. He turned to Raisa and gave her a quick hug, before putting an arm each around Felicity and Thea, and headed down the stairs quickly.

As they headed out the front door Diggle pulled up with the Bentley…The girls stopped in their tracks at the sight of the front lawn. They has been expecting some collateral damage of course, but it was a full on bloodbath in front of them. All the guards were dead. Most with multiple gunshot wounds. The girls were stunned for a few seconds before Oliver ushered them quickly into the car. They didn't have long before the mercenaries figured out their orders were faked and came back. Oliver carefully shuffled them all in and yelled at Digg to move out. He wasn't sure where they were going to go just yet, but he'd find somewhere safe.


	4. Chapter 4

CHAPTER 4 "What Now?"

Quentin Lance came home after being sent away from the Queen household bomb site. He argued with the Captain, trying to stay and investigate the disappearance of his friends. Unfortunately, he wasn't in the best standing with the Captain as it was, and his pleas fell on deaf ears.

"_Go home Officer Lance, you're too emotionally involved. We don't want a conflict of interest. Or worse, you losing your cool…AGAIN!" The Captain scolded in the condescending tone Lance hated._

"_Sir, with all due respect, I was a Detective, I KNOW these people, they're friends, I want to help." Lance argued for the 4__th__ time that afternoon._

"_I've made my decision. Don't go back to the station, just head home. I don't want you anywhere near this. If I think you should receive any information, I'll call you. Otherwise, STAY OUT OF IT! Are we clear OFFICER!?" The Captain chastised again._

_Lance didn't even answer. Fuming he stromed over to his vehicle and slammed the door shut behind him. Running his hands over his face and through his hair, he just wished he could get a hold of ANYONE! Moira wasn't even answering. Her cell just went straight to voicemail. He had already gone down the list of every "involved party" he could think of and she was his last shot. He had heard she definitely wasn't in the house as they had some big meeting at QC today._

"_Whatever, I guess they'll just call me when they need me…they always do." He muttered to himself, feeling left out of the loop, and starting his trip back to his apartment as ordered._

Still somewhat muttering to himself, he turned the key to his apartment and opened the door, only to be grabbed by the collar, pulled in, and the door slammed behind him.

"WHAT THE….!? ROY!? WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU….HOW DID YOU…?!" Quentin got out before Roy roughly put his hand up to cover Lance's mouth. They didn't need someone to hear him yelling. As Roy nodded his head to the side, Lance followed his motion over to his kitchen table, where Felicity, Raisa and Thea were sitting in chairs.

Oliver was with Thea, stitching up a cut on her arm. Diggle was by Felicity, who had her right hand wrapped up in a bloody cloth and holding it over her head tiredly. Diggle was wiping blood from her neck and ear as she winced. Raisa only had minor cuts on her arms that had already stopped bleeding. She had insisted the other girls get treated first. Sara came in with more medical supplies from the direction of the bathroom and plopped them on the table with the other supplies, haphazardly strewn about. All three girls looked like they'd been, well, in a bomb blast.

Lance nodded his head and Roy let go of his mouth and collar.

"Sorry, didn't want to draw attention." Roy explained half-heartedly, now turning his attention back to Thea.

"Yeah…no problem." Lance said quietly, in a daze, to an empty space that was now in front of him.

Then, final able to think and react, Lance headed over to the table.

"Is everybody alright? I saw the…damage at the house." He said softly, referring to the 10 plus dead security guards on the front lawn scattered about.

Felicity looked at Quentin, then glanced at Diggle. Diggle just gave a half smile and spoke louder.

"YOU OK?" He said to Felicity. She understood and gave Lance the thumbs up with her dirty, bandaged left hand.

"We're alive." She said, a little too loud.

"A little shell shocked?" Lance spoke up.

She just nodded yes and shrugged.

That's when Thea spoke up. "I got the concussion, she got the 'BOOM'." She said, making and explosion gesture with the arm Oliver wasn't stitching.

"Do you know what happened yet? How did they get in?" Lance looked from Thea to Felicity.

"One of the guards." Felicity said, interrupted by a couple of smoke induced coughs. "He was working with Slade, he had an earpiece." She coughed a couple more times, and Diggle stopped what he was doing and put his finger over her mouth to shush her. He shook his head 'No' when she gave him puppy dog eyes through her dirty, cracked glasses.

Thea continued. "Felicity saw one of the guards with an earpiece while we were outside waiting for Ollie. When he noticed we were onto him, he started shooting. Then a van pulled up and EVERYBODY was shooting. We ran inside and Felicity hacked their ear pieces, and tricked them into leaving for a little bit. Long enough for Ollie to get there and get us all out. She has since yelled at us and told us to stop thanking her. So… don't thank her. She has a scary loud voice."

Lance chuckled despite the grim situation, and offered to grab them all a glass of water to help with the smoke inhalation. When they all vehemently shook their heads affirmative, him and Sara fetched them water, and then some clean clothes from their bedrooms. Though Sara didn't live there, when she got back to town, her dad stocked one of his guest rooms with a bunch of clothes, and things he knew she liked before the accident. Thankfully, Sara preferred her dark, dank, clock tower, so the clothes were all still brand new and a good fit for the girls.

"I've got the two guest rooms, and a sectional couch. Should be enough for all but one of us. I can…" Lance started.

"I'll take the floor." Digg interrupted. Lance looked over at him questioningly. But he continued. "I used to sleep on the ground in Afghanistan. I think I can take a plush rug. Besides, I'll probably be up keeping watch most of the night with Roy anyway.

"If you insist, you guys can figure out the rest. I don't care what you do, just keep it PG." He insisted. That got a laugh from everyone, even a smirk from Oliver. Felicity just looked around and smiled having only gotten part of it. She just assumed he said something funny. Her hearing was going in an out still, she could always hear something, but sometimes were better than others. It was annoying, but John insisted it would get better in a day or so. Probably a ruptured eardrum. 'No headphones and loud music for a while!', he ordered, knowing she loved to listen in the car and while hacking.

ARROWARROWARROWARROWARROWARROWARROWARROWARROW

In the Glades, in the basement of an old factory, 8 large men lay dead in a pool of blood. They were all wearing black and had shocked looks on their faces.

Slade was wiping the blood from his hands angrily, sword and gun tossed to the corner. The only people left standing besides himself were Sebastian Blood, and Isabel Rochev. They just stood motionless, glad he didn't turn on them while in his fit of rage. When his comm. stopped working, he threw it across the room and knocked over anything that wasn't bolted down. The mercenaries returned to him in a full rage. Confused, the Alpha leader started to ask why he had pulled the team back early. Unfortunately for him, he lost his head before he could finish the question. The other members of the team tried to either defends themselves or run, but bullets didn't bring him down (he dodged all but 2 anyway) and he was too fast to let any of them get away.

When he seemed to have calmed, Isabel finally spoke up.

"So. What now?"

Slade whipped his head up to look at her. Anger still written all over his face, but she knew better than to flinch.

"We make a new plan. Starting with flushing them out. That should be easy enough with our leverage over there." He nodded his head to the corner, where bound to a chair and gagged, bruised and bleeding from her head, was Moira Queen.

A/N Sorry I didn't have time for a long chapter today. I wanted to get you one before tomorrow. Enjoy! THANKS

JAG


	5. Chapter 5

A/N Sorry it's been a while. There were work things, and busy-ness, and migraines. I'm back, and will hopefully have WiFi where I'll be staying all week! So I can work on this at all hours like a big nerd lol. OK. Let's see what happens.

Chapter 5 "What happened?"

"_Mrs. Queen! Sorry to interrupt, but it's urgent! Something's happened!"_

_This replacement executive assistant was getting on Moira's last nerve. She had only been in a couple of board meetings with Felicity as EA and it was like heaven. This one on the other hand, he didn't even know what a tablet was, let alone preparing 10 of them for the meeting. Now he is interrupting them when she specifically told him it was a closed meeting. How could he even function in…everything in her brain stopped as soon as she walked out of the meeting and saw the news on display on his monitor. Her home had an explosion. There was no footage or anything yet, just a "Breaking News" banner, and a reporter overly-excited about reading off the new headline. Her phone immediately rang .'Oliver'_

"_Oh thank god.." She whispered to herself as she picked up the phone._

"_Oliver! What happened! Are they…" Moira started in a panic, already heading towards the executive elevator. Oliver cut her off._

"_Mom. I just talked to them, their ok…for now. They are in danger. I'm on my way to get them. I'll get back to you with details on a safe location. STAY AWAY FROM THE MANSION!" Oliver stressed. He knew it wouldn't be safe for any of them._

"_OK, I'll just have the driver circle until you call me with a location. Take care of the girls. I love you." Moira added._

"_Be careful." Oliver said before abruptly ending the call. She could barely here him of the sound of the motorcycle anyway._

_As she reached the executive garage, her driver opened the door for her and from In the vehicle she instructed him to just keep moving until she gave him further instruction. _

_Only five minutes had gone by when the driver pulled through the intersection on a green light, only to be blindsided on the driver's side by a large, black SUV going way too fast. It sent the towncar flipping over to the other direction, killing the driver instantly and effectively knocking out Moira from her head hitting the window. A second vehicle pulled up, this time a large black van. Two people in black masks got out, and pulled Moira out of the car and into the van. Passersby were taking pictures and video with their cell phones as others where calling , it took emergency services longer to arrive, as they had just gotten an all hands on deck called from Queen mansion. They had to wait for off duty rescue and police to come in as back up. It was 20 minutes before an ambulance arrived, and 25 minutes before the police. Made it. Moira was in the wind. _

_Because it took another 15 minutes for the police to positively identify Moira Queen as the abduction victim, the media finally caught wind a full hour after the crash. _

_Just about the time Office Lance was grabbing glasses of water for his new, unexpected house guests._

"Where is my Mom, I tried to call her when we got here but her phone went straight to voicemail. Have the police gotten a hold of her?" Oliver asked Lance.

"I couldn't get her on her cell earlier. Maybe her phone died?" Lance responded.

"No, it's been too long. Over an hour since we got here. She was going to wait for my call." Oliver said worriedly.

"I can try and track her cell if Lance doesn't mind me hacking on his laptop." Felicity said with a plastered on, pleading smile.

"Go to town, I'm sure you can cover your tracks just fine." Lance said, adding quickly "But don't bleed on my keys!" He yelled sternly, making sure she heard him. She nodded her head, half smiling, half upset that both of her hands were now damaged. She went to get up, but Diggle stopped her in her tracks.

"Whoa, whoa, not quite yet Tiger. I have to finish up with your injuries first." Diggle insisted. He had stitched up her head and her hand, but he had noticed a bruise on her neck and back should earlier that he wanted to take a look at before he let her have at her hacking. Especially with her shoulder/chest injury healing, he didn't want to take any chances.

"What? You got my hand and my head. You can't do anything about my ears…" She trailed off confused.

"Felicity…your shoulder hurting you? Maybe your neck?" He looked at her with his head cocked to the side.

"Well I mean…my arrow hole didn't like getting tossed 15 feet if that's what you mean. Sure, it stings more than usual." Felicity replied, just now realizing the throb in her shoulder. As she moved around to check, she noticed her back, neck AND shoulder all hurt a lot more than normal. Diggle noticed her wince.

"Adrenaline has worn off. Alright, shirt off, now. Lance, Roy, turn around." Diggle ordered and they complied. Lance, opting just to go into the other room and try getting in touch with Moira again.

Felicity grumbled. "Why do I always have to be naked in public. This is like that recurring nightmare, where I went to school and Johnny Franchetti…nevermind…" She stopped her babbling before it got any more embarrassing.

As Felicity tried to lift her left harm above her head to take her shirt off, she realized the extent of her back pain. She lifted and only made it to her ribs before huffing in pain again. Diggle stepped in, slowly helping her get her right hand out first, then stretching her shirt over her head, and lightly finishing, sliding the left side off of her arm.

"Oh." Diggle said quietly. She barely heard him.

"What? It's really stiff did I hurt something? Cause I need that right now…" Felicity rambled, annoyed.

"Yeah, Felicity, This is gonna hurt tomorrow." Diggle said, loud and clear.

"How bad?" Felicity replied, now worried.

"I don't know yet, it depends if anything is broken. We are probably going to need to get x-rays as soon as this is all done….sorry." Diggle said, genuinely feeling sympathy for his best friend. Why couldn't it have been him, he kept thinking to himself.

Thea glanced around from the seat next to Felicity to survey the damage.

"OH WOW! OUCH! How did you not notice that!?" Thea exclaimed.

"Alright seriously what? I don't have eye balls in the back of my head guys!" Felicity yelled, louder than normal.

"I wanna see…" whined Roy from his corner, bitter to miss a cool injury.

"NO!" All of them yelled at the same time.

"I'm going to go get some analgesic for that, I'll be back in a second from the bathroom." Raisa said, suddenly feeling like she needed to help more.

"I'll get it, you sit back down, you're next!" Sara said sternly.

In the meantime, Thea had taken out her phone, somehow undamaged, and snapped a picture of Felicity's back for her.

"Oh." Felicity said in a higher, but quieter than normal voice when she saw the picture.

She had a large, seemingly rectangular puffy red mark, just starting to bruise, stretching diagonally from her neck, down her left side to the middle of her left ribcage.

"You must have hit something when you got thrown by the blast, or something hit you. We won't know for a while. Either way, it looks like it was probably a board, or a 2 by 4 or something." Diggle said, carefully pressing his fingers along the entire area. She winced every time, but held Oliver's hand the best she could with her bandages. At one point, when Diggle was around her ribcage, she flinched extra hard, and Oliver put one hand on her cheek, kissing the top of her head.

"The post." Felicity said quietly, lifting her head up and closing her eyes."

"What?" Oliver responded.

"The post, on the porch. Near the bench Thea and I were sitting on." Felicity explained.

"Ohhhhh." Thea added.

"I must have hit it and broken it in the blast. It happened so quickly I don't remember it. But when I got up and ran inside, it wasn't there." She finished.

"Oh man. That's rough." Thea sympathized, as only Thea can.

"I don't THINK anything's broken, but the whole area is going to hurt for quite a while. You've pretty much set yourself back a couple weeks. But luckily, your "arrow hole" seems fine. I hate that term, and I'm going to use something else from now on." Diggle said.

Sara started to gently put the pain reliever on Felicity when Lance came into running into the room suddenly.

"Lance!" "Dad!" "Officer Lance!" They all yelled simultaneously at his lack of discretion, until Oliver saw the look on his face.

"What is it! What happened!" Oliver exclaimed.

"Turn on the TV!" is all Lance could get out.

Roy ran over to the TV and flipped it on and the others followed. With the exception of Sara and Felicity. Sara was quickly but gently applying as Felicity painfully craned around to see the TV. She wouldn't be able to hear it from the other room.

"…_no word yet on if the attacks today on the Queen mansion are connected to Moira Queen's kidnapping this afternoon. But sources say they happened only minutes apart, and the police think it's too much of a coincidence for the incidents not to be a specific attack…on the Queen family. More questions have also arisen in the search for Oliver and Thea Queen. It's now been assumed that they survived the attack on Queen mansion, as well as Oliver Queen's rumored significant other Felicity Smoak. But, no one has heard from them or seen them since the incident that left some members of their household staff injured and all of their security guards viciously murdered. Police say they found blood on the scene, but aren't sure if it was from a family member, or the guards…"_

Oliver and Thea just stood in horror. He had gotten to their mother. This was all planned. He was trying to take out as many of them in one swoop as possible. But Oliver, and everyone else, were quick to notice that he wasn't supposed to be present at any of these attacks. They were meant for his family. For the people he loved. Slade wanted Oliver to suffer. And he got what he wanted.


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter 6 "Find Her"

"Bring me your laptop!" Felicity yelled immediately upon seeing the TV screen.

Oliver whipped his head at her pale. Thea was crying on the floor with Roy holding her. Lance just stared at the screen for a couple more seconds. Everybody was silent. Even Sara had stopped rubbing the analgesic on Felicity's back.

"LANCE!" Felicity used her loud voice to get his attention. He snapped out of it and looked at her questioningly.

"BRING ME YOUR GOD DAMN LAPTOP! NOW!" She yelled. She spun around in the chair she as sitting in, ignoring the momentary pain the quick movement caused.

"And Sara get me a damn shirt! Make it a button up or something easy. Whatever's quickest."

Lance ran up and opened up the laptop in front of Felicity on the table. As it booted up Sara came in and threw one of Lance's old button up dress shirts around Felicity, who carefully slipped her arms in. Once she was up and running she started tracing the phone immediately, pinging the nearest towers to the crash site. Oliver had rushed up by her side, hands in fists at his sides. He had excess nervous and angry energy he couldn't get rid of. Waiting wasn't an option. Slade had his mother. Him and her were finally back to a decent place after the Merlyn incident, and he was afraid Moira and Thea would never get a chance to fully reconnect. He was amazed at the speed with which Felicity could type even after everything. It was definitely slower than usual, but he refrained from anxiously raising his voice at her. She was under enough pressure and after he acted after Barry thing he knew he was on thin ice on the specific issue of questioning her skills.

At the same time of running the phone search, which was already going slow because she was on a crappy laptop, she was also trying to hack into the traffic cameras to see if she could get video of the accident or the direction they went.

"AGGHHHGGGHH! Lance your laptop SUCKS!" Felicity yelled in frustration, never looking up from the screen. She did break her promise not to bleed on his keys, as her bandage on her hand was bleeding through somewhat. It was making the keys slippery, but not really hindering her progress. It was much better than at the mansion, when she had first cut her hand. There was blood all OVER her keyboard there. She noted that she was going to have to fix both computers later. Or just buy Lance a new one because his laptop really was terrible. She couldn't get anywhere, and it was PISSING her off!

"No!" She yelled back as Oliver put his hand lightly on her shoulder. It was killing her, and even his lightest touch felt like an anchor strapped to her back. She looked back with an apologetic look when she realized that she had snapped. He just had his hands up in surrender.

He stuttered out "Sorry, I'm just anxious. I didn't mean to hurt you."

"It's ok , I'm sorry, it took me by surprise. I'm sorry, I'm not mad. I'm just frustrated." She apologized.

While Raisa and Roy were comforting Thea in the living room, Oliver, Diggle, Lance and Sara were all looking over her shoulder, quietly but anxiously discussing how to move in once Felicity found Moira's location. 'No pressure' she thought to herself as they spoke. She could only hear 50% of it, but it was enough. She was again thankful for her current partial deafness. Huffing again, she went to put her head in her hands, even though they both ached. Her head was starting to pound along with the rest of her body, and she just needed to close her eyes for 2 seconds. When she felt the wet of blood on her forehead she quickly pulled away. She had forgotten about the bandage for a second, and now had even more blood on her face. Not that it matters at this point. Just as a single tear of tension slipped down her face, the laptop finally pinged. Everyone looked up but her. Oliver nudged her good shoulder and she whipped up to look at him. He pointed at the screen, and she spun to look at the search.

"YES!" She half fist pumped, her shoulder kept her from doing it fully.

"You really DO do that." Oliver said.

"Told you. Her phone just turned on at the corner of First and Main! It's an abandoned office building. Lots of power. People probably just think it's squatters." Felicity explained quickly.

"We're going. Now!" Oliver ordered. "We have to stop and get supplies at the Foundry. Roy, you're coming with us. Can you handle this?"

"I'm with you. You'll need me." Roy assured.

"Don't hold back." Oliver surprised Roy.

"Oh. Uh. Ok." Roy stuttered. He glanced over at Thea, who still had tears in her eyes but was no longer crying. She stood up, moved away from Raisa, and hugged him.

"Bring her back safe." She pleaded.

"Of course." He returned quietly.

"Ollie be careful" Thea added loudly.

"Seriously. Be careful. We don't have comms, you don't have eyes. This has trap written all over it Oliver. All of you." Felicity asserted. "And please call us."

"We've got it. We'll try and be careful. Slade is…" Oliver trailed off. Felicity stood up, and hugged the crew before they left. Oliver last.

"I love you" she whispered to Oliver, face buried in his neck.

"I love you too." He replied.

"Come back to me." She pulled back and looked in his eyes.

He just gave her a tight smile, and then a chaste kiss on the lips, before breaking from her, and quickly heading out the door.

As an afterthought he yelled back. "Lance, take care of my girls!"

"You got it." Lance yelled back.

Felicity missed most the exchange, as she had turned and sat back down at the table. Leaning over tiredly, she was finally able to let go of the tears she'd been holding back. Unable to hold her head in her hands she all the sudden felt very exposed, and got up to head for one of the spare rooms to be alone.

Lance turned his attention toward Thea and Raisaa, who were looking off in Felicity's direction. Thea met Lance's gaze, nodded, and stood up to follow her. He was left out in the living room, watching the footage of the kidnapping with Raisa, whose name he didn't even know. They were now including amateur video of Moira getting taken from a bystander. He shook his head, and Raisa cried, at Moira helpless, limp body, bloody and scuffed up from the crash.

Thea quietly stepped into the room Felicity went into. Tears in her own eyes as she saw the strong woman in front of her break for the first time. She had seen her in pain before, but this was a whole new level. Felicity was helpless. She couldn't doing anything to support her family, and they were in danger. All she could do was sit here with Thea and wait. It was horrible. Worse than when she was on comms with them. Worse than getting injured. Though the pain she was in wasn't helping her current situation. Every sob was excruciating with her newfound back injury. All she wanted was for the whole ordeal to be over with. She wanted everyone's pain to stop. She felt weak that she'd finally broken after everything, but at least the team wasn't there to see her. By now she trusted Thea. Plus, she had witnessed Thea break so many times over the last weeks that they seemed like family at this point. Thea just gently cradled her head as they both cried quietly, only leaving once to go get Felicity a glass of water and a pill for the pain. Felicity insisted nothing more than Advil to keep her alert. 4 Advil…but nonetheless, nothing stronger. Finally convincing Felicity that he would stay awake, Lance got the girls to rest. He put Raisa in the second guest room so she could sleep more peacefully. After their long day, he wasn't sure how they were still functional. 'Adrenaline does crazy things', he thought to himself. He watched sadly for a moment as Felicity tried to find a comfortable position that didn't ache. Then he went back out to keep watch, and stand by waiting for info.


	7. Chapter 7

A/N Sorry it's been so long, I had writers block when it came to the confrontation…after everything that happened on the show my mind shorted out and I had to regroup. Brain malfunction. So I've been thinking a lot about where to go with it, but I think I'm going to just pick one of my thoughts and run with it. See what happens. I hope you enjoy. I wish I could show you a picture of my nervous face right now.

CHAPTER 7 "Promises"

"Diggle. In position?"

"_Affirmative."_

"Sara?"

"Ready."

"Roy?"

"_All good."_

"Alright. Everybody stay put. I'm gonna get the lay of the land first, then we'll take it from there."

Oliver hopped off of the ledge he was crouching on and silently sneaked his way down the back steps of the dilapidated building. Arrow notched in his bow, he held it facing the ground just in case he needed it in a pinch. There was no one. No guards in the hall, no security at the door. Nothing. He couldn't help but think that Felicity was absolutely right. This had trap written all over it. He heard low voices coming from the large open room at the end of the hall. He was incredibly exposed in this position. No where to hide, only one exit from this area.

Oliver whispered into his comms "Hold back. It's definitely a trap. If you hear anything over my comm, come in through the south entrance, _not_ the east."

He only heard two responses.

"Diggle. Copy? Do not engage."

Silence.

"Sara?"

"_I'm on it."_

"Roy hold your position. Watch your back."

"_I'm just sit…*FWAK* UGHH! __*THUD* *__CRASH*"_

Barely able to keep a whisper, Oliver worriedly hushed over the comms.

"Roy. _Roy_."

A little…busy…UGH! *SMACK*"

Oliver sighed silently but kept his composure. Roy is nearly invincible, he can handle whatever is happening. Unless it's Slade, in which case, there is nothing he can do.

Oliver slowly crept forward towards the larger room, prepared to enter what will most likely be the last room he'll ever see. As long as his mother gets out alive, he doesn't care. No one else will die because of him.

What he saw next he could never have prepared for. There were only five people in the room, including himself. Slade stood, arms crossed in front of his chest. Behind him on either side were Sebastian Blood and Isabel Rochev. What were they doing here!? How were they involved?! Bound to a chair, sitting in front of Slade was Moira. Her face bloody from a cut on her head and she seemed to be favoring one side. He needed to get her out of there.

As Oliver made his way into the room, he walked straight towards them. Slade moved his hands to Moira's shoulders. And she closed her eyes for a moment. We she reopened them they had fire in them, she was furious at the way Slade was trying to push her son's buttons.

Oliver pulled back his arrow and pointed it at Slade's head.

"Don't you lay a hand on her!" he growled.

"It's a bit late for that sentiment, maybe you should have paid more attention. I'd think security would have been a little more abound when you have an invincible soldier after your family. She was just a little too easy to get a hold of, kid." Slade mocked.

Oliver glanced his eyes away for a second at the quiet static in his earpiece. Not one of his team was on comms.

"Oh, don't worry about them kid. They won't be interrupting our little…party." Slade teased again.

"Where's your little side bitch? Couldn't make the trip?" Isabel added from behind Slade. Slade looked at her to shut her up. Her stupid little grudge against Felicity had nothing on his plan for ultimate vengeance. He was starting to get annoyed with her comments.

"She's safe. Unlike you. Now that I know you're involved in this, oh you're going to pay." Oliver promised.

"Focus, kid. I think you have more pressing matters to concern yourself with. Like what you're going to do about dear old mum here." Slade insisted.

"You're going to let her go. You're not this guy Slade. She's not a part of this. Shado wouldn't want this in her name. She'd be ashamed of who you've become. You can fight the mirakuru. I KNOW you!" Oliver pleaded.

"YOU KNOW NOTHING! I will SHOW you what it's like…to lose EVERYTHING! I made a promise to you in that ship! And I'm going to keep it! I will kill EVERYONE YOU LOVE! And then you will die! Just like you let Shado DIE!" Slade was enraged. Oliver could see how far he's spiraled. Slade couldn't even hold it together.

Oliver knew then that he couldn't talk Slade down. He was too far gone from the super drug to think clearly. His only option at this point was try to distract him long enough to get his mother free so she could run. He made eye contact with her, hoping she'd understand his plan. She just slightly shook her head 'no'…but he knew what he had to do. He didn't have a chance against Slade at full power. Especially with help. He didn't know how Isabel was involved in this but he assumed she was capable of handling herself if she was there with Slade, exposed.

Without warning, Oliver lifted his arrow and fired at Slade's chest. Slade was quick and the arrow just got him in the shoulder. He pulled it out like it was nothing but by then Oliver had shot 2 more arrows. One hitting his mark again in the side. Three was all he could get off at Slade before Isabel was flying through the air. She hit him hard and fast in the face and then gave him a swift roundhouse kick sending him to the floor. He was shocked by her aptitude for fighting. He had underestimated her force. She must have trained with Slade as their fighting styles were similar, but she was so much smoother and quicker. This time he was able to block her hit and anticipate her movements, and using his sheer force he clotheslined her and pinned her to the ground.

Looking up to face his mother, Oliver realized his distraction had worked. The second arrow he fired, he had actually fired at her ropes to free her. She had gotten up as the fight started, and was running toward the door. Sebastian Blood racing after her. Oliver sideswiped Isabel's head with his bow, then shot an arrow at her shoulder. He just wanted to stop her for now. Then he got up and fired at Blood, getting him with one arrow in each leg sending him flying to the ground with a scream of anger. Oliver whipped back to find Slade, but he wasn't where he was previously standing. Turning to scan the room he saw a door on the wall. The same wall with the hall that he'd entered from. As he spun back around to that same hallway, he saw his mother had almost reached it. He put it together an instant too late.

"NOOOOOO!" Oliver yelled as he watched Slade emerge from the hallway in front of his mother, sword in hand.

Slade grabbed Moira by the neck, lifting her off the ground. Oliver started to run towards them but he was too far. Slade plunged his sword into Moira's abdomen and dropped her to the ground. Oliver ran up to her cradling her head in his hands as she lay bleeding. Slade was calmly walking towards the door, but looked back only to taunt Oliver more.

"THIS IS JUST THE BEGINNING QUEEN! Tell that little bitch you love that she dies last before you! You'll both watch as everyone else pays for you and her father's sins."

With that, Oliver tore his gaze from his mother's eyes, and Slade was gone.

"Ol…Oliver…I'm…"

"Shhh, shhhhh it's ok, we're gonna get you help. You'll be alright." He assured Moira, pressing on her wound.

"Son…I…I can't breathe…I…I'm sorry. I love you…" She was taking shallow, panting breaths.

"JUST HOLD ON MOM!" Oliver screamed, as he took the cell phone out of his pocket and dialed 911.

"…Yeah I need an ambulance and police at 202 First Ave! It's a warehouse! Moira Queen has been found but she's severely injured! She's on the first floor! HURRY! The perpetrator got away, but his accomplices are still here!"

"Ok sir. The ambulance is on it's way, but who is this…?" He heard the operator ask before abruptly hanging up the phone. He heard a shuffle not too far away and spun around quickly to place another arrow in Isabel's thigh this time. She had stupidly gotten up, and was trying to sneak her injured body over get another shot at Oliver.

He turned his focus back to his Mother and she had slipped into unconsciousness.

"No! Mom!" he crouched down besides her again and put his gloved hand over her wound, trying to slow the bleeding, but there was blood everywhere. He had torn a hole right through her. There was nothing he could do.


	8. Chapter 8

CHAPTER 8 "Figure It Out…"

The girls had only been sleeping for about an hour when the call came in from Oliver. Lance listened in shock while Oliver hastily explained the situation. Lance noticed it sounded like he was driving, and wondered if that was a good idea after what had just happened. But then, Oliver mentioned something about the cops coming and Lance figured he was just on autopilot.

"Where is the rest of the team?"

"Roy was able to get away from his attacker, he found Diggle and Sara drugged and got them to the car. He didn't get a chance to come back to help me. I met up with him right as he was done loading them in the back seat. They are coming around, but unharmed."

"Well that's something positive. Oliver…I'm so sorry."

"_Not now Lance, I'm on my way back. Don't wake the girls until I get there? I'll also need to get changed and head down to the hospital to…" _he paused and let out a quick sigh before continuing, "_I'll be there soon."_

With that Oliver hung up without saying good bye. Lance just stared at his phone. Moira Queen was dead. Oliver had basically just watched her die. But he was still in protective mode, still in Arrow mode. Lance just wondered how he dealt with it all sometimes. How cut off from his emotions he must be in order to protect the people he loves. And how terrible it must feel to give everything to the cause and STILL not be able to save his mother.

"Detective Lance? Are you ok?" he heard a tiny female voice behind him and almost panicked. Getting his game face together, he turned to see Thea standing in the hall, arms wrapped around herself. It was almost as if she was bracing herself for bad news.

"Hey kiddo, why are you awake?" Lance faked a slight smile.

"Would you be able to sleep with what's going on?"

"I guess not, I see your point. What about Felicity and Raisa?"

"I don't know about Raisa, I didn't want to disturb her. I think the only reason Felicity is still asleep is pure exhaustion, maybe a little bit of a concussion? She cried herself to sleep, I think it was by accident actually."

"How is her back?"

"I don't know, but it hurts her more than she's letting on. Stop stalling, what was that call?" Thea tilted her head at him.

"Perceptive kid."

"Not a kid."

"Fair enough. Oliver is on his way back, he should be here soon." Lance kept it short.

"What about Mom?! Did he get her?! Is she with him?!" She started towards him.

"Whoa, whoa, I didn't get the whole story, he was driving and rushed. He'll be here soon, and I'm sure he'll explain everything. Why don't you sit down, you still look tired." Lance tried to gloss over everything without really lying. He was a pretty terrible liar when it came down to it.

Thea sighed, "Lance I just…I can't stand this waiting. I just want to know one way or the other."

Walking over to the couch, she flopped down and tiredly put her head in her hands.

"Let me get you something to eat. You have to keep your strength up" he offered.

"I don't know if I can eat right now, I'm too nervous."

Knowing she definitely wasn't going to be able to eat anything once Oliver returned, he insisted.

"Just some toast or something. You need something in your stomach or you'll get sick." With that, she just nodded and he turned towards the kitchen. He was grateful for the reprieve. While in there, he made some extra for Felicity, he was sure she'd need it as well. Bringing it out to Thea, he told her he was going to go check on Felicity, make sure she wasn't awake. He ordered her to eat and she blankly obliged, sitting quietly, numb after the days events so far.

As Lance headed into the spare room with the extra plate, he saw that Felicity was in fact awake.

"Hey, what are you doing awake, just laying in the dark?" Lance flipped the light on to see Felicity with a pained look and a light sheen of sweat on her face and neck.

"Whoa, you ok?!" He ran over concerned.

"Yeah" she said weakly. "I couldn't really get comfortable, and I couldn't really get up, so…"

Lance gave her a fatherly look of sadness and sympathy. He sat on the bed and ran his hand over her head. She shut her eyes briefly, trying to move again. She winced and forfeited, knowing that she wasn't going anywhere tonight.

"Why didn't you say anything, honey, we would've given you something stronger." Lance said, not at all accusatory, but softly.

"I wanted to be lucid when Oliver came back. I didn't want to wake up Thea, she needed sleep, too. Then I figured when she got up and went out to you I could listen to see what was going on. But then I couldn't move and…" Felicity cut herself off, not really trusting her voice, as a few tears had started up again. She hated being vulnerable, and looking weak. Especially around father figures. She really did trust Lance, but it was hard for her.

"It's fine, you'll be alright. Oliver will come to you. You just need to stay here and rest a little." Lance tried to reassure her.

"He called you didn't he?" She asked looking up at his eyes.

Once she made eye contact, he knew the cat was out of the bag. She was too perceptive and he couldn't lie to her.

"…damn it Felicity." He whispered dejectedly.

"Oh my god…." She said quietly back, knowing now he had omitted the truth from Thea. She put her hand up to her mouth and again whispered. "Moira?"

Lance just nodded, as he too covered his mouth so he wouldn't make noise. His eyes watered, but he held back any real tears.

Felicity covered her face with both hands and took a few deep slow breaths to make sure she stayed calm. Oliver was going to need her when he got to the apartment. DAMN HER BACK! She needed to be strong for them, for her family, her friends. But she couldn't even sit up straight. She was pissed, and sad, and tired. Felicity decided to hell with it, she was getting up and waiting for Oliver, and helping him through this! As soon as she moved to get up, Lance was pushing her right back now.

"No." Lance said simply.

"Detective I'm going out there, they're going to need me." She asserted decisively. Moving to get up again and grunting he pushed her back down again, carefully.

"Stop." He said. Lance knew how to get through to her, but knew she was going to be stubborn about it.

"Let go Lance." She gritted through pained breaths. Sweat collecting on her brow once more.

"You need you right now. You lay down. That's an order." He stated firmly. She gave him a death glare that he blatantly ignored.

"Oliver needs you, you're right okay. But he needs you in tact, able to help him, and soothe his grief. What he doesn't need, is too be worried about whether you're going to collapse out of pain and exhaustion any second. He doesn't need to be picking you up off the floor and taking you to a hospital. Because Felicity, if you try to get up, that's where you're going to land. And I'm pretty sure what he NEEDS right now, is for the people he loves to be SAFE. Do you understand me? So you staying right here, and when he needs you, he'll come to you. Got it?" Lance looked into her eyes throughout the whole speech, his hand lightly resting on her shoulder. He wanted to make sure he got through to her. He knew that panic, emotions and adrenaline were starting to take her over again and he needed to keep her calm. More importantly, in that bed.

She looked him in the eyes for a few moments, taking in what he said. She knew he was right, she was in no condition to be up and about. But she was still pissed about it. She shifted off of her propped arm to lay back down flat, thankful for the relief it brought her shoulder and back. Huffing and frustrated, Felicity nodded her head "yes", agreeing to stay in the bedroom for the time being. She put one hand over Lance's on her shoulder and just closed her eyes again, brow furrowed with worry.

They suddenly heard a loud cry from the other room. It was Thea.

"Go." Felicity said with a start. Lance glanced at her eyes and turned to run into the living room.

"Oliver!" He gasped as he ran in. Lance saw Oliver standing just inside the doorway, draped in green leather, covered in blood. He looked relatively unharmed, so he assumed the blood was Moira's.

"Oh no…" he whispered to himself, the realization that Moira was good hitting even harder than before.

Thea had dropped to the ground when Oliver and the battered team walked in without Moira. She just had to look at her brother's face to get the answers she needed. Although not the answer she had wanted.

He knelt to the ground in front of her and took his bloody jacket off, tossing it to a kitchen chair. Taking her head into his chest and resting his face on the crown of her head, they just sat there. Thea quietly sobbing into his chest, Oliver with a blank, yet devastated expression. Slade had broken them. It was too much pain, exhaustion, and grief for them to take at once. Oliver looked like he couldn't even process what was happening. Thea was shattered, her world having fallen apart over the course of just a couple of weeks.

Oliver found himself mindlessly whispering apologies in Thea's ear. "I'm sorry, I wasn't fast enough. I wasn't strong enough. This is my fault. I'm so sorry Speedy. I'm so sorry."

Roy sat on the couch, head in his hands. 'Why didn't I help Oliver? Sara and Diggle were fine, they could have waited. I could have saved her. Why didn't I help her?'. At some point during the fight outside, Roy lost his comms. But he didn't realize it until after he had found Diggle and Sara. He made the wrong judgment call in helping them, and he'd have to live with that forever. He feels like he's gotten a small taste of what Oliver had been through. 'How does he deal with this feeling day in and day out?'. He couldn't reconcile his actions with what happened.

Sara and Diggle were both a little roughed up, but relatively fine, comparatively to the rest of the group. They both felt like they had failed, but neither were really sure what had happened. Diggle remembers stating he was in position one second, and he next he's waking up in a speeding car with a pounding headache. Sara just remembers going to find Diggle, seeing him from a distance laying on the ground and then she too was waking up in the car. Somebody had sat her awkwardly in the front seat and her head and neck ached. She thinks she vaguely remembers a scuffle before she passed out she was drugged, but she can't be sure. It all happened so fast, that none of them blamed Roy. He was just trying to help as many people he could as fast as possible. He didn't even have time to try and help Oliver.

After a few minutes of giving Oliver and Thea some space, Lance placed a light hand on Oliver's shoulder.

"Do you need anything? Clothes? Water? Do you want me to call the cops to see what's up?" Lance asked softly.

Oliver looked up, just realizing where they were and what was happening.

"Felicity? Where is she is she ok?" He asked, not removing Thea from his embrace.

"She's alright, she's in bed in the other room. Having a little trouble moving too much, but she's ok. She knows." Lance added.

Oliver nodded blankly. Diggle got up from the kitchen chair he'd been resting in and went to check on Felicity without a word from Oliver. It was understood that they'd take care of one another, and he knew that if she knew what happened, then not being out there with them was probably killing her.

"I'll go tell Raisa. Raisa?" Lance added.

"No, let her sleep, I'll tell her." Oliver said. Lance just nodded and sat next to Sara at the kitchen table, taking Diggle's seat.

Sara just sat, taking off her leather jacket, leaving her in a black sports bra and black leather pants. She checked out her bruises and scrapes. She'd definitely been in a fight. In a hand held mirror, she checked out a bruise on her hairline. 'That would account for the added memory loss.' She assumed. Nothing too serious though. She figured her head was pounding more from the drugs than anything. She was startled when her dad took her hand and squeezed. He wasn't even looking at her, focused on the Queens, but held on to her for dear life.

Diggle slowly made his way into Felicity's room. She was laying facing the door, with her hand over her face. When she heard him come in she looked at him through her fingers, then covered her eyes again.

"Are you alright?" She asked with no emotion.

"We're ok. The only one that really was…" Diggle paused. She didn't need to hear this right now. "How are you feeling? Getting worse?" He asked quietly.

She just nodded 'Yes', but stayed silent. When she took a long, shuttering sigh, he knew that she had been crying. That's her tell. He's only seen her cry a few times, and each time, he heard that same sigh. It seemed to be how she reigned her emotions back in, and collected her thoughts.

Felicity removed her hands from her face and held it out on the bed for Diggle to take. She stared in his eyes. They didn't need words to see how each other were doing, but she did want some details before Oliver inevitably came in.

"What happened?" She asked simply.

Diggle looked down and sighed. Sitting down on the bed, he gently took the offered hand, mindful of the injury.

"It was a trap. We knew it was a trap going in. I didn't get much detail, somebody drugged me almost immediately upon getting into position and knocked me out. They got Sara, too. Next thing I know, I'm in a car, Roy had found us and got us to safety. From what I caught of Oliver's story to Roy, Moira was tied up when he got in there. Isabel and Blood were both in there as well…"

"Isabel? Like Ice Bitch?" Felicity confirmed, shocked. Diggle had to admit, he loved the nickname she had given Rochev since Russia.

"Yeah, we don't know why she was there, but apparently she can fight. Oliver shot Slade a couple times as distraction, and shot Moira free. Rochev and Blood both attacked Oliver, and he took them both down pretty quickly. Slade must've snuck around or something because Oliver said all the sudden he had Moira. He said something to taunt Oliver and then…" he stopped there, knowing she knew the rest.

"I think is was a sword…" He added.

"Oh god." She said. "Poor Moira…and Olvier…he must be…" She sighed and rolled to her back subconsciously. Bad choice.

"No! Terrible idea." She hissed painfully through her teeth. Diggle helped her prop back up on her side and she blew put a few huffed breaths.

"Don't do that." He said. And she smiled for the first time since earlier that day.

"Yeah. I figured that one out a while ago, John." She looked at him with a painful smile, through her sweat covered brow and breathing heavily still.

"There you are. I've been looking for you." Diggle said to her and nudged her hip softly.

"I've been here…forever…laying here…eternally." Felicity said tiredly.

"You should be sleeping, didn't you take your aspirins?" Diggle suddenly thought about the situation.

"Yeah about that…I wanted to be clear headed when you got back. But I took a bunch of Advils." She defended.

He just rolled his eyes. "Felicity, seriously?"

"Hey, I'm allowed to NOT take heavy narcotics during a crisis. I basically slept through the entire thing last time and you guys almost got yourselves killed." She steamed.

Diggle put his hands up in surrender. "Ok, ok. I get it. But you HAVE to relax."

"I'll relax when I see Oliver." Felicity chided.

"He's with Thea now, they are giving themselves a few minutes to…process. He already asked about you, he knows you're in here, and I'm sure he'll be in here once he knows Thea is ok. Or at least as well as can be expected."

"Ok, yeah they need to be together. What about the cops?" She asked.

"Well he called them to the scene just before he left Moira. He didn't really talk about it but I heard sirens so I assume they found her. He'll have to go to the station or to the hospital to make an ID and to let them know he is ok. He'll probably tell them that you girls are in hiding again or something." Diggle figured.

"Yeah you might wanna go with him for that, he's not the best liar, and I can't…" Felicity started.

"I'm on it, don't worry." He insisted.

"I WILL worry. I love him John. He needs me. I just…" Felicity couldn't figure out how to finish that sentence.

"I said, I've got it. You worry about getting better, and being here of Thea. She'll need you, she still can't leave here. It's not safe for either of you." John reminded her.

"Yeah, ok. You're right." She closed her eyes again in to keep herself centered.

"Will you be ok? I was going to go check on Sara, see if she's injured. I don't think she is, but just to make sure…"

"I'm alright, go ahead. I'll be in here…obviously."

"You're sure you don't need anything?"

"No, go ahead, check on her."

Diggle just nodded, patted her shoulder lightly and headed back out.

As he came into the dining area and living room, he saw Sara tending to her own minor cuts. Including the one on her head that they had missed. Oliver and Thea had moved to the couch, but she was still cuddled into him, holding on for dear life. Roy still sat in the same position, head in hands. Digg went over to Sara and took the stitching needle out of her hand.

"I'll take that." He said.

"I can do it, go back to Felicity…." She insisted.

"Felicity is ok for now. Just let me do it, it'll be quicker and less painful." Diggle reprimanded. She looked back at him skeptically. He added "She gave me permission to come back out here and take care of you. Relax, I got it." He said sternly. Sara relented and let him tend to a cut on her arm, then clean up the abrasion on her forehead. She winced at the pressure. That was definitely why she didn't remember everything.

"I think I got into a fight." She mentioned.

Diggle just raised an eyebrow at her "Would you think?"

"Yeah I guess I got hit in the head, I don't really remember. I know they drugged me too, but this is probably the brunt of my headache." She pointed to her head.

"I can see that. It's pretty bad, but as long as you don't get dizzy or nauseous you'll be alright. Keep me updated alright? I know there's a lot going on, but you have to pay attention to how you're feeling." Diggle ordered.

"Not my first trip to concussion-land Doc. I know what to do." She patted him on the shoulder and got up to get herself a shower and change. "I'll be right, back, I'm going to get cleaned up. We probably have a long night still ahead of us."

"Not for you." Lance said. "We can take care of everything that's going on. I'd prefer that anyone that is a target stays here. At least for the night. We can figure out the rest in the morning. Oliver…?" Lance directed his question towards the living room with a sensitive tone.

Oliver looked up at him with dull, red rimmed eyes.

"I'm going to make that call for you. I'll let the cops know that you are safe, as well as the girls, and that you'll contact them tomorrow about…everything that happened." He tried to word it as lightly as possible.

Oliver knew what he was saying either way, but he was grateful for the kid gloves for Thea's sake. He was also grateful for the place to rest. He knew his sister was probably exhausted, and that she probably still hadn't really slept. He knew he was.

"Hey, Speedy." He tried to get her to look at him. He wound up having to lift her chin to meet her eyes. They were puffy, and red. Her face flushed.

"Hey, they are going to take care of everything tonight, and we'll figure the rest out tomorrow ok? How about you go get some sleep?" Oliver said very quietly and gently.

"Yeah." Thea sighed her reply, and looked over to Roy, just noticing his position.

"What is it?" She asked him putting her hand on his shoulder.

"I should have…" he started to rub his hands from his face and over his head, he continued looking at the floor.

"I should have had your back. I could have helped. I could have…" Roy started.

"Roy…" Oliver interrupted getting Roy to make eye contact. "You did what you thought was right. You helped your team. You tried ok. You did good." He said sincerely.

Roy just shook his head disappointedly and looked back at the floor.

"Come on babe, let's go get some sleep. OK?" Thea said quietly.

She took his hand and pulled him up, leading him to Lance's room, not even caring that Lance wouldn't have a place to sleep. Not that he cared either. Sara decided to go lie down on the day bed in the room where Raisa was sleeping. She had her phone on vibrate in her hand to wake her up every 20 minutes, just in case the concussion was worse than they thought.

Oliver just glanced up at Diggle, who nodded, and Oliver stood up heading towards Felicity's room.

Diggle and Lance were left out in the living room.

"Well I guess we're keeping watch." Lance stated the obvious.

Diggle just nodded.

"I'll grab the first shift." Lance insisted, knowing that Diggle's head had to still be killing him.

"Thanks, no argument here." Diggle said as he flopped onto the couch and closed his eyes. That's when Lance was sure how the bodyguard was feeling.

Oliver walked into the room in which Felicity was waiting and slowly, silently close the door behind him.

"I'm not asleep." She mumbled, her arm still covering her face. She moved her arm away so she could see him, but it was pretty dark. She just saw his large, muscley outline. Felicity shuffled over in the bed to make room for him…slowly, and not without a couple of grunts.

"Come on, lie down." She said soothingly.

He did as instructed, still silent. He lay flat on his back with his left arm out, expected Felicity to curl into him laying on her right side…which she did. They laid as they always did. Her left hand resting on his chest and her head in the crook of his neck. He usually has his arm over her back and waist, but being mindful of her bruises he moved his left hand to her hip instead. He let out a heavy sigh.

"Do you wanna talk about it?" She whispered.

"Not yet." He answered back, honestly.

She just cuddled her head more into him held on a little tighter.

"Ok. Get some rest. Tomorrow will be…" She trailed off as he tensed, then slowly relaxed again. She sighed.

"I love you." She whispered again, and she gave him an ever so light kiss on his jaw line.

She waited for a moment, but he finally responded with a kiss in the crown of her head.

"I love you, too."


	9. Chapter 9

A/N I don't mean for this chapter to be anti-feminist. I wouldn't really have a clue anyway. It was just in my head. Feel free to let me know if it's anti-feminist, and I'll probably shrug and say "oops". Side note: I wrote most of this while DJing at the bar last night. It would have been up much sooner, but I had people pestering me to like…do my job and stuff…it was annoying.

CHAPTER 9 "He Didn't Mean It?"

Felicity awoke to rumbling under her head. As she became a little more aware, she could faintly hear small grunts and groans, mixed with vague words coming from Oliver. 'OK so I guess that hearing problem is still in and out.'

She couldn't quite make out what he was saying but every so often he would twitch. She assumed he was having one of his normal nightmares, and that he would wake up and she would calm him down. As usual. It was almost a nightly occurrence. She know knew better than to wake him up. She had made that mistake their first night out of the hospital and he freaked out, having trouble regaining reality. Felicity figured out quickly that if she let him wake up on his own, then he had a much easier, less possible violent transition. He had never hurt her, but that first night he came damn close, and minorly injured himself in the process.

This particular night, he was getting worse though. Getting a little louder every minute or so. She began to understand some of the ramblings. "No." "Stop." "Innocent." And finally "Mom." That one was the loudest so far. She was getting nervous as he was getting more and more restless. More worried for him that his dream was that fresh, that real. Not really realizing she should be caring about herself in her half-asleep, exhaustion. Still, she feels like he'll be ok once he wakes himself up. He always does, and he always is.

Unfortunately for everyone, tonight was not a normal night. What Felicity failed to realize, was that her hearing WAS still slightly impaired. What she was hearing as slight groans and barely legible words, everyone else in the apartment could hear through the closed doors and down the hall. It was about 4 a.m., and Diggle, having taken the second watch shift over from Lance, heard the screams first. He was worried that something was wrong, or that someone else was in the room, and he came bursting through the bedroom door at almost a run. He saw Felicity's face go from slightly worried to absolutely terrified in less than a second, and instantly realized he did the wrong thing. She breathed out a barely audible "no." immediately letting Digg know that his suspicions were correct.

"NO! STOP!" Oliver screamed. He instantly pulled tightly on Felicity protectively, but the strong hold put her back in excruciating pain. He held her tightly, jumped up from the bed back towards the closest wall and clutched her against his chest. His eyes were wide with fear and wild. Felicity could do nothing but let out a loud bloodcurdling scream. Her back and shoulder were on fire. Oliver's grip was so tight it probably would have been painful on a good day, let alone right now.

"OLIVER! STOP! WAKE UP! FELICITY!" Diggle yelled as he jumped over the bed to try and break Oliver's hold on their girl.

"GET AWAY! STOP! NO! SHE'S INNOCENT!" Oliver screamed again erratically, still half in his dream. Felicity couldn't breath from the pain, and had stopped screaming in favor of gasping for air. But every breath felt like knives stabbing her in the chest and back.

Diggle jumped at Oliver, taking a right hook in the jaw in the process. Luckily, Oliver asleep is not as on point as Oliver awake. His punch wasn't strong enough to take down the large ex-marine. Diggle put Oliver in a hold against the wall, forcing him to let go of Felicity enough to where she fell to the ground sobbing and gasping.

"OLLIE!" Thea yelled form the door. "DIGGLE WHAT ARE YOU DOING!?"

"No!" Oliver said quieter due to the choke hold he was in. He was crying, something Diggle doesn't think he's ever seen.

"OLIVER! WAKE UP!" Diggle yelled again. "THEA STAY BACK! OLIVER!"

"Yeah" Oliver coughed out. "Yeah. I'm OK. I'm awake."

"Oliver, can I let you go?!" Diggle asked loudly in his face. He was trying to keep his anger about Felicity being hurt at bay.

"Yes… Digg…Felicity." Oliver choked out again as Diggle loosened the hold. Oliver went to lean down to help her, but Diggle pushed him back against the wall.

"I got her." He said sternly in Oliver's face again.

Felicity was curled in a ball on the floor on her side. Her face pale, and sweaty. Her breaths were shallow and quick. Diggle carefully and gently lifted her from the floor. She winced and let out a strangled gasp at the contact, but then relaxed into him once he settled her in his arms.

"What the hell just happened?" Thea exclaimed from the door, moving slightly out of the way for Diggle to run Felicity through to the living room.

"I…I don't…I think I had a nightmare and…" Oliver rubbed his hands over his head, feeling like the world had just crashed down on him. It was possibly the worst moment of his life, when he woke from a dream of watching his mother die, to realizing he had injured the love of is life. He couldn't process that mistake.

Thea ran from the room, and followed Diggle down the hall. She was now followed by Roy, Sara and Raisa, who had all heard the screams. Sara detoured into Oliver and Felicity's room to calm Oliver down, and get the story. She understood best after all.

Lance had woken up after everyone else as he had just gotten to sleep an hour or so after his watch shift. By the time he was sitting up on the couch rubbing his eyes, he saw Diggle running towards him with Felicity in his arms.

"MOVE, MOVE!" Diggle yelled at him hastily as he ran in.

Lance jumped up from the couch, and out of the way confused.

Diggle carefully lay Felicity down on the couch on her good side, and cupped her face in his hands to look at her eyes.

"Roy! Hydrocodone!" He ordered with no regard for politeness or Roy's feelings. Roy just turned and ran towards the kitchen table, where all the med supplies where still strewn about throwing things to the side, some landing haphazardly on the floor.

"Felicity. Shhhh, shhh. Hey look at me. Hey?" Diggle urged. Her eyes were closed tight and her brow furrowed in pain. Her breaths were a little less shallow but not even close to normal. She was shaking. Diggle was afraid she was going into shock or that she had injured something else. He really didn't want to have to take her to the hospital, she wasn't safe in the open. He was afraid if he couldn't get her to calm down her shock would get worse, and she might start to shut down or have a seizure.

"ROY!" Digg yelled again.

"I've got 'em." Roy yelled from across the room and tossed the pills over to Diggle.

"WATER!" Diggle yelled to no one in particular.

Thea already had it ready and shoved it in his hand.

He put his hand on Felicity's forehead and talked to her softly but firmly.

"Felicity. Open. Your. Eyes."

She finally complied, eyes watery and clouded over in pain and fear.

"Can you hear me?" he said fairly loudly.

Felicity nodded in a couple shaky jerks.

"OK great sweety. I'm going to give you these pills. Can you swallow them?" Diggle didn't mean to sound patronizing but right now he saw her almost like a little sister. She was responding to it and to him that's all that mattered.

She nodded again.

"OK, here you go." He put one pill in her mouth at the time and gave her a sip of water for each, waiting for her to swallow.

"OK you're doing great, now just rest ok. I know it hurts, it'll be better soon." He was as gentle as any of them had ever seen him. They were shocked that he had that in him, but Felicity brings out his soft side. He looked over at Thea who was sitting on the arm of the couch confused and worried.

"Watch her. Make sure the drugs take effect and try to get her to fall back asleep."

"Is she ok? What happened?"

Diggle tried to rein is anger back at the thought.

"Oliver had a dream." was all he said.

Thea looked horrified at what her brother had (she's sure accidentally) done to her friend. She's sure he didn't mean it, but he wasn't going to see it that way.

Diggle stood up, and stormed out towards the bedroom, Roy on his heels just in case. What he saw in the room deflated any residual anger he had at the broken man. Diggle just stood there for a few seconds and watched Oliver sitting on the bed as he sobbed into his hands. Sara sat on the bed next to him, her hand on his shoulder trying to talk him down out of his guilt.

Oliver just kept repeating "I didn't mean it, I didn't mean it, I hurt her, I'm so sorry…" and the like over and over. Sara trying to shush him, telling him they understand, and that Felicity wouldn't be mad at him. It's not his fault. He just kept shaking his head, horrified at what he'd done. Sara noticed Diggle before Oliver.

"How is she? She alright?" Sara asked.

"Not yet, but she's responding. She took the pain meds. I think she'll be alright soon. It was more the shock than anything. She didn't have time to prepare." Diggle started.

"Diggle I'm so sorry! I…I don't…" Oliver started.

"Oliver stop, it's not your fault. If anything it's mine. I came barreling in and woke you up in the middle of a dream. Felicity obviously knew what was coming as soon as I came in cause she looked fine and then scared. Has this happened before…?" Diggle almost didn't want to know the answer.

"The first time we slept in the same bed I had a nightmare. She woke me up. I almost hurt her but didn't. I hurt myself by mistake instead before I figured out what was going on. We found out if she doesn't wake me up then I'm fine. She just calms me down after I wake up…I'm so sorry I should have warned you or something. I guess neither of us really thought…Oh God." Oliver couldn't hold it together long enough to finish his thought.

Diggle was just relieved that he hadn't hurt her before and kept it a secret. It was really none of his business as long as she was never hurt. Sara kept rubbing Oliver's back soothingly as he fell into tears again.

"Why don't you come out and see her?" Diggle asked, against his protective instincts. He knew Oliver would never hurt her consciously.

Oliver just emphatically shook his head no.

"No I can't, I can't…I….she won't want to…" Oliver tried to get out. Diggle just came over and took his face in one large hand roughly.

"Listen. I get that you feel terrible. And I get that it was an accident and you feel guilty. But right now your girlfriend, who loves you more than anything, is out there in incredible pain. She needs you. Get it together and be there for her. She'd want you to get over this and just be there for her….. Damn it Oliver GO OUT THERE AND HOLD HER HAND!" Diggle yelled.

Meanwhile in the living room, Felicity had started to relax a little bit. Thea had almost started to relax as well until she heard Diggle yelling. Felicity must have been having a good hearing moment, because she perked her head up and opened her eyes when he started.

"S'that John?" Felicity asked in a tiny voice.

"Yeah sweety, it's fine. Don't worry about it." Thea tried to soothe her. She wasn't as good at this as Diggle was…somehow.

"No, he'sssyelling at 'liver. He didn't mean nit. He was 'sleep." Felicity laid her head back down from exhaustion, but did a commendable job at keeping her eyes open.

"It's all good, girl. Diggle knows Oliver didn't mean to. He's probably just yelling at him to stop blaming himself. You know how Oliver is. He probably feels terrible. Only John can knock some sense into his thick skull." Thea said with a smile. Felicity smiled faintly and her eyes fluttered again, but only for a couple seconds until she processed what Thea said fully. Her eyes popped back open.

"No, don't let him hurt him. He can't help it, he was scared for his mom. He was jus' tryn ta help 'er" Felicity slurred again.

"No, it's ok, he won't. I'm sorry I was just joking. Trying to get you to smile. God I'm terrible at this stuff. Where's John?" Thea asked to herself.

Lance came over seeing the frustrated look on Thea's face.

"Hey Felicity. Feeling any better?" Lance asked.

"mmmmm." Felicity hummed her affirmative answer to him and he smiled.

"May I?" He asked Thea, pointing to where she was sitting.

"Please, I apparently have NO bedside manner." Thea scoffed.

"Well I raised two daughters, so I've picked up a couple of things."

"Thank god." Thea responded.

Lance sat next to Felicity on the couch and lightly grabbed her hand. She squeezed back, and looked up at him trying to focus through the drugs and with no glasses on.

"Having a good night?" He asked Felicity.

"The besssst." She hummed back closing her eyes again momentarily.

"Yeah, me too. I think I almost got an hour of sleep." He retorted.

"Woooooow." She replied back sarcastically.

"I know, thrilling right?" Lance smiled at her.

She shook her head no slowly.

"Whoa, dizzy. No head moving." She slurred out.

"Yeah, aspirins will do that. Hey, why don't you try to get back to sleep. Oliver will be in in a second to sit with you while you close your eyes." He soothed.

She opened her eyes again and furrowed her brow slightly.

"I wanna wait til I know s'ok." She slurred out defiantly. "Don't try do trick me with yer brain. Mine's better." Felicity still had her wits. Her mouth was just moving slower than her brain at the moment.

Lance just smiled up at Thea who just tilted her head in agreement.

"Gangin' up on me I see. Thea why don't you go get Oliver, and I'll stay out here with her and Raisa." Lance suggested.

"My pleasure." Thea jumped up and almost ran to the other room.

As she walked in quickly, she ignored Oliver's tears and Diggle's loud voice. She walked right by, grabbed Oliver's hand and pulled on him like when she was a kid. All while rolling her eyes, and making an exasperated noise that was telling of her mood.

Not even looking back at him, she easily dragged him off the bed through the room and out the door.

"Come ON Ollie! Quit being stupid and come out here so your insane, stubborn girlfriend will just pass out from the drugs already. She refuses to sleep without seeing you first." She marched him right out to the living room not giving him enough time to protest. He looked like a deer caught in headlights when he finally saw Felicity on the couch holding Lance's hand. But he almost instantly snapped into gear, and flew past Thea, heading straight for Lance's seat. Lance got out of the way just in time for Oliver to slide onto the couch and grab Felicity's hand gently. He lost his words immediately. There was no way to apologize. She spoke first…as usual.

"Stop." She looked at him with high, scolding eyes.

"Stop it. M'Ok. S'Not your fault." She slurred again.

"Felicity…I…" Oliver started.

"No." She demanded.

"Not your fault." Felicity urged.

"If I pretend to feel less terrible and kiss you will you go to sleep." He requested.

"Yessss. I will."

"OK good. I'm ok if you're ok. Now go to sleep, I'll be right here." Oliver insisted as he bent down and gave her a soft kiss on the lips. As he came back up he left one hand on her head and rubbed a finger over her hair. He knew she loved that.

"Mmmmmm" she hummed as she closed her eyes and gave a faint smile before immediately passing out.

"Oh my god finally." They heard Thea say from the other side of the couch.

"Shhhh." Oliver scolded, then turned back to Felicity who was thankfully out cold. He wiped her cheek of a residual tear and touched his forehead to hers. He would never forgive himself for what happened. He could only try and do better in the future. But for now with her injured, he had already decided it would be best if they didn't sleep in the same bed. At least until she could get around easier.

"I'm gonna take her back to bed." Oliver suggested. "Everyone else should go back to sleep too. Tomorrow is going to be…difficult." They just looked at him knowingly, Digg and Roy both dropped their gaze to the floor.

"Thea, I know this is going to seem repetitious, and difficult. But I need you to stay here tomorrow. While I take care of things." He said vaguely.

"No! She MY mother too Ollie, I need to help! I need to…" She started to argue.

"You NEED to stay alive_. I_ need you to stay alive. Slade already came after you once with the bomb. Yesterday, he threatened everyone we care about… _you_ are on the top of that list. You're the most innocent one here, and the most devastating target for us."

"What do you mean _us?_" Diggle asked out of nowhere.

"What?" Oliver was caught off guard by the question.

"You said _we_ and _us._ What do you mean?" Diggle rephrased.

Oliver turned away and looked at a sleeping Felicity again, knowing that whatever Slade has planned involves her. He wants to punish her as well, for some unknown sin that her unknown father committed. He meant to talk to her about what Slade had taunted first, but she isn't waking up any time soon.

"He threatened both of us tonight." Oliver stated.

"WHAT?!" Diggle was confused, and scared for his friend. "WHY!? What do you mean?"

"I think it has something to do with what he said at the house. He mentioned her father again…but this time…" Oliver had a hard time finding the right words and getting them out.

"This time _WHAT_ Ollie?" Thea chimed in.

"…He didn't just threaten to make me suffer. He wants to make her suffer the loss too. For some reason, she is just as much a part of his vengeance as I am. We need to figure it out, and soon. But not tonight. Tonight she needs to rest, and we all need some more sleep. We have to be up in a few hours."

"After _that_? Yeah, I'm sure we'll be getting a great night's sleep." Thea sighed and started to pull Roy towards Lance's room again.

"Sara?" Oliver said, suddenly removing the woman from her deeps thoughts on the other side of the room.

"Hmmm? Yeah what's up?"

"Do you mind staying with her tonight…I….I don't…" Oliver stuttered.

"Ollie, I…" She didn't know how to express her feelings either. Diggle watched both of them try to speak to each other. It was interesting the dynamic between the two, it's almost as if they had exactly the same emotional hurdles and difficulties from what they'd been through on the island.

"Please…" He pleaded, not wanting Felicity to get hurt again by his hand.

"Ollie, I…" She looked at the ground and ran her hand through her hair uncomfortable at the sudden scrutiny. "I have the same problem. You don't want me in there."

Oliver instantly understood, lifting his eyebrows and nodding to her, as she uncomfortably walked hastily out of the room. Lance wanted to follow her, but decided to let her be for now.

Raisa stepped up from behind Lance.

"I'll stay with her Oliver." She gently placed a hand on his shoulder and nodded down at him. "She probably will be asleep until noon anyway. I'll watch her."

"You're a godsend Raisa." He responded, putting a hand over hers. "I'm sorry we got you into all this. You don't have to stay, I can get you out of town. You've probably stayed fairly under his radar."

"I'll stay until you don't need me anymore." She insisted.

"OK, well then, after the funeral…I'm getting you out of town. You and your family, just to be safe."

"Whatever you want Master Queen. I'll keep an eye on your girl until then. No worries here. Come on, let us get her to bed." Raisa said backing away, giving Oliver room to carefully pick up Felicity.

As he laid her down on the bed and pulled the covers over her, he couldn't help but wonder when he was going to feel like she was safe again. He feels like she been under attack for weeks, and he couldn't keep her from the danger lurking. Oliver vowed to figure this out sooner rather than later, and stop Slade. Maybe he could figure out that cure that Dr. Ivo had mentioned on the island. He knows the cure is long lost, but it's worth a shot to try and synthesize it. They HAD to figure out the connection between all this and Felicity's father. It may be their only chance to beat Slade at his own game.


	10. Chapter 10

CHAPTER 10 "Oh boy"

The fog was lifting. She couldn't figure out why at first. There were muffled sounds, and even without her eyes open she could tell it was bright in whatever room she was in. There was a little bit of background noise, but it was something else that woke her. Some noise right in front of her face. It was a voice. By the tone, it sounded like it should have been loud, but to her it was a little muffled. Then, she could feel breath on her face as the voice grew louder. This made her furrow her brow in annoyance, why couldn't whoever it was just let her sleep? Felicity was all the sudden jolted into complete alertness when someone grabbed her bad shoulder and shook her hard. Her eyes shot open to see a blurry Laurel standing over her, angrily trying to wake her up.

"Ow! OW! What the HELL!? Stop!" Felicity pulled herself out of Laurel's grasp and sat up. 'Hey! I can sit up!' she thought. 'Wow I'm out of it…'.

"You're damn right 'What the hell'! What are you doing here, and why didn't you wake up? Why is my dad's apartment a mess!? And where the hell is he at noon on a Saturday!? Where have Oliver and Thea been!?" Laurel ranted angrily.

Felicity only caught every other word, but she assumed the rest. She was still super groggy. She closed her eyes, and put her hand up to her head to settle herself.

"WELL!?" Laurel yelled again before finally noticing the large bandage on Felicity's hand, and the cut on her head that had been previously covered by her loose curls.

"Oh….you were in the explosion." Laurel finally put it together, her anger dissipating slightly, but confusion still apparent.

Felicity just nodded her head 'yes' and then sighed, opening her eyes. Vision still blurry, she realized she didn't have her glasses on.

"Felicity! You're awake!? Are you ok!? Laurel what are you doing here?!" Thea yelled as she ran into the living room in a towel followed by Roy. She and Roy had been charged with holding down the fort, while the others went to settle things at the police station and get supplies. Thea was in the shower when Roy knocked on the door frantically trying to get her attention. He had heard Laurel come in and start yelling, but didn't want to scare her by going out there himself. Thea jumped out of the shower, and ran out to calm her down.

"Thea? What are you… what is going on?" Laurel finally asked, flopping down in exasperation in the arm chair near the couch.

"Did I sleep out here all night?" Felicity croaked out, ignoring Laurel.

"All morning you mean?" Thea retorted, also ignoring Laurel for the time being. "No, Oliver took you to bed after you passed out. He brought you back out here just a few hours ago. They went to take care of some things. How's your back? Are you ok? We heard you scream." Thea asked, remembering to speak loudly, and perching herself next to Felicity on the couch.

"Well, I can sit up, that's improvement. My hearing is all weird again. Where are my glasses?" She asked, wishing to make the room clear.

"In the bedroom, I'll grab them." Roy quickly fled the scene, happy for a reprieve.

"Is anyone going to answer me?" Laurel persisted, feeling slightly bad for hurting Felicity earlier, but annoyed at being cast aside.

"Jesus, Laurel, relax. Clearly, we didn't break in. Detective Lance is just helping us out with a safe place to stay for a little bit. Take it down a notch. And Felicity didn't wake up because she was given painkillers for her back. She was in an explosion after all, she probably couldn't really hear you anyway, her hearing is screwed up too. No reason to freak." Thea chided. She was annoyed that Laurel would come in and just start berating someone who is asleep, and who obviously has bandages and injuries. Laurel knows that Felicity is Oliver's girlfriend, and not a complete stranger. Her reaction was uncalled for, and it left Thea feeling a bit prickly towards the other brunette.

Roy came back in with Felicity's glasses, which where still cracked and bent.

"Great, I guess I'm going to be doing contacts for a while. Wait, I don't have them with me either. Awesome." Felicity sighed, and left on the broken glasses for the time being.

"What time is it?" Felicity asked.

"It's around noon. I was coming to see if my dad wanted to do lunch and talk." Laurel answered. "Thea, I heard about your mom. I'm so sorry."

Thea just looked away to the floor, she hadn't really had a chance to deal with it all yet. So much was happening.

"Yeah" was all she said back, quietly.

Felicity decided to change the subject.

"Half the day is gone already. Do they have any other leads?" She said as she glanced over to Lance's computer that was still at the kitchen table. She had to hide her sudden panic when she noticed Oliver's green Arrow jacket sitting on one of the kitchen chairs. She assumed Laurel hasn't seen it yet, and looks away as to not draw attention to it.

"No, they were just focused on getting to the police station and squaring things away." Thea said, still looking a little spacey after the comment about her mother.

Felicity put her hand on Thea's shoulder. "Why don't you go get dressed, I'll start working on our problem." She said softly. Thea just nodded and stood. As she turned, she spotted the jacket and she jolted a bit, spinning back around.

"Laurel! Why don't you come with me, and I'll explain what is going on a bit?" She said in a strange tone. "Roy. You can fill Felicity in on _what we found out last night_."

'Wow she's a terrible liar.' Felicity thought. 'Worse than Oliver.'

Roy nodded in overly exaggerated acknowledgment, and Thea and Laurel went into the other room.

He quickly grabbed Oliver's jacket, and hid it safely in the other bedroom. Felicity couldn't help but giggle as it kind of resembled a Three Stooges episode. Although, Roy and Thea were kind of reminding her of the 10th Doctor and Rose being cheesily sneaky about something, and using terrible excuses to get away from the evil-doer of the week.

Her smile instantly faded when she saw Roy sheepishly walk back in, specifically avoiding her gaze.

"Oh god, you actually did find something out last night? What is it?" Felicity demanded quietly.

"Barbie, I should wait…" He started, but was interrupted by Felicity again.

"No, you tell me right now. What happened?" She said forcefully.

It's like he could hear her loud voice inside the whisper, and it royally freaked him out.

"OK well…after you passed out…Oliver told us something…it was what Slade said in the warehouse…" He paused not wanting to drop this bomb.

"It was about my father wasn't it?" She let him off the hook. He shot his head up and met her eyes. Nodding his head yes he kept his mouth shut.

"What did he say? Did he threaten Oliver?" She asked worriedly.

Roy kind of crooked his head to the side. "Ummm…sort of? He said that he would kill everyone that you _both_ love. He wants you to suffer too Felicity. For whatever your dad did. He wants you and Oliver to both watch everyone you love die. Then he said he's going to kill you in front of Oliver, and then kill him." Roy stuttered out.

Felicity's face paled. Well, that would explain why Oliver was even weirder than she expected coming in last night. 'Oh my god and his nightmare!' she thought. 'He was trying to protect me, not his Mom.'

"Yeah, I think so, too." Roy said. She realized she had said her thoughts aloud, again.

"Roy get me my laptop, please." Felicity ordered. "I mean…Lance's laptop."

He was already up, thankful that the hard part was over and that she didn't say anything else about it.

"While you're over there, can you grab some of that cream Sara was using on my back yesterday? It really helped." She asked a little nicer this time.

He looked around for it, he had thrown everything around at 4am looking for the pain pills, and the supplies were in complete disarray. Finding what he was looking for, he brought both things over to her sitting them on the coffee table in front of her.

Just in opening up the laptop and starting it up, she realized she'd probably need the pain reliever on her back before start with her hacking. She could get through without it, but she would move quicker with it and would have less of a difficult time focusing.

Felicity looked up at Roy and he had a look of fear in his face that seemed like he was about to face Slade alone. She realized he thought she was going to ask him to put the cream on her back and she smiled.

"Relax, kid, I'll wait til Thea comes back in." Felicity said as he looked immediately relieved.

"Besides, can you imagine if Oliver walked in and saw you rubbing my back half naked?" She joked. Roy just turned bright red, and turned around starting toward the room him and Thea had been using. Only calling back to say "That was mean, Barbie!".

She chuckled, but then remembered why she needed the laptop in the first place. She decided to start one thing before getting the cream on her back. Felicity hacked into her private cloud server, and started downloading the file she had collected on her father over the course of the last week or so. Once the transfer started, she sat back as best she could on the couch and rested a minute.

Thea came in, followed by Laurel and not Roy. 'I guess I spooked him.' Felicity thought, now feeling bad.

"Roy is just going to grab a quick shower. He said I can put the cream stuff on your bruise while he's in there so that Ollie doesn't 'kill him with his hands'. Roy's words not mine. Even if they are a little true."

"Yeah, I'm still a little loopy and I teased him. I feel bad now." Felicity said quietly.

"No, it's good for him. He needs to be kept in check sometimes." Thea smiled and winked. "Alright, strip."

"Right here?" Felicity stated, confused.

"Oliver texted me, they shouldn't be back for another couple of hours. He said they are stopping off to grab a couple things before they head back." Thea assured.

"And I don't think you have to worry about anyone else barging in and freaking out. Sorry about that earlier by the way. I didn't mean to hurt you." Laurel added.

Felicity was taken aback. "Ummm…it's cool. I'm alright."

Laurel just threw her a tight, awkward smile. "Do you want some Advil or something?"

Felicity shook her head, "No thanks, I should go easy. I'm sure my liver would protest all the painkillers I've had in the last 18 hours or so. Especially without eating anything."

"Well why don't I make you a sandwich or something while she's doing that?" Laurel pointed at the cream.

"That would be great, thanks Laurel!" Thea answered for her. Felicity wasn't really hungry, but figured Thea was right. She should get something in her stomach, she hadn't eaten in at least 24 hours. Laurel went into the kitchen.

"OK…as I said…strip." Thea insisted.

"Yeah that's easy for you to say…" Felicity said. Oliver had put her in a tee shirt over night. As she tried to lift her shirt, she stilled about halfway and winced. She tried a different tactic, failing at that as well. She dropped her arms to her lap in defeat, looking up at Thea with puppy dog eyes.

"Ok, I got you." Thea stood up and walked to Felicity's right side, the "good" side, and grabbed her shirt as Felicity removed her right arm. Thea, much like Diggle had done in the lair, pulled the shirt up and over Felicity's head, and slipped it off her left arm gently. Surprisingly, with very little pain.

"Wow, you're pretty good at that." Felicity joked.

"A lot of practice with my drunk friends in high school. I'm pretty sure I could do it with my eyes closed by now." Thea boasted.

"Well, I think I only want _you_ to do that for me until I can do it myself." Felicity stated lightly.

"What about Ollie?" Thea teased.

"Ha. Ha." Felicity sarcastically quipped back. She missed their banter. It had only been about 24 hours but she felt like they had had any light conversation in days. As Thea was gently rubbing the cream onto Felicity's massive bruise, Felicity all the sudden remembered part of last night.

"Oh my god!" Felicity said suddenly, scaring Thea a little.

"Whoa, what's wrong! Did I hurt you?" Thea said concerned.

"No, sorry. Is Oliver ok? After last night. After…what happened?" Felicity blurted out quickly.

"Just getting you brain back, huh?" Thea tried to keep Felicity's mood as light as possible. "Yeah, he's ok. He's probably not going to sleep in the same bed as you for a while though. After…he's a little…skittish." Thea stuttered out.

"What happened last night? Oh my god! Your back!" Laurel exclaimed as she came back into the room with 3 sandwiches on a tray.

Felicity whipped her head around, not entirely comfortable with Laurel seeing her in a bra. Also, not really comfortable discussing her relationship with Oliver with the ex love of his life.

Thea looked up at Laurel and shook her head 'No' subtly.

"Sorry, you and Oliver are none of my business. But your back…I mean…now I'm REALLY sorry for shaking you earlier. Wow." Laurel rambled uncomfortably, staring at the huge black, red, and purple bruise.

Felicity just looked over to Thea and rolled her eyes. Thea smiled at her and continued applying. Laurel set the sandwiches down next to the laptop, and sat next to Felicity on the couch.

"So what are you doing on my dad's computer?" Laurel asked. Not suspiciously, more curious and nosy. She was really starting to get on Felicity's nerves. She didn't feel like having to censor herself and make up stories right now. Felicity already had too much to worry about.

Felicity let out a resigned sigh. "I'm trying to figure out who's after us and why." She said vaguely, knowing it wasn't going to be enough to pacify the attorney. Her JOB was to find juicy details about cases.

"Oh! What do you have? And how are you getting that info…wait…is that…" Laurel started as she glanced at some of the private documents on the screen.

Felicity sighed again give Thea an 'I'm-tired-and-don't-feel-like-dealing-with-this-please-help-me' look.

Thea just smiled again.

"Felicity has some…special skills." Thea explained.

"Yeah but…this is like…" Laurel started, but Thea interrupted again.

"Yup. Yes it is. And you're not going to say anything to anyone…right Laurel?" Thea said almost scolding.

"No…I mean…you're not like…hurting anybody right?" Laurel asked.

"Did she ask if I was hurting anybody?" Felicity asked Thea, who nodded 'yes'. "No. I'm not hurting anybody. I'm just looking for information." Felicity said before resting her elbows on her knees, and putting her head in her hands. Her head has started pounding worse and worse the longer she was awake. Her hearing problem wasn't helping, she had to overly concentrate on everything, and try to read people's lips. It was succeeding in making her have a nice sized headache by this point.

"Here, eat your sandwich, and then we can get you some more painkillers or something." Laurel insisted seeing how worn out Felicity was looking already.

"Here's your shirt, I can help you get it back on if you want?" Thea said, having finished applying the cream.

"Yes please, to all of that. This is almost done downloading, so I need to get started soon if I'm going to find out what…" Felicity stopped herself and closed her eyes, almost forgetting about Laurel. This was more tricky than she anticipated. She was too tired and in to much pain to be able to censor herself properly. She knew she was eventually going to slip up.

"It's cool guys, don't worry about me. I'm just here to help." Laurel said sincerely.

Felicity just looked up at her. She wasn't sure what to say next, but Laurel continued.

"I mean, how am I going to help you guys and Oliver against this threat if nobody will admit he's the Arrow?" Laurel looked Felicity in the eyes and Felicity's face dropped, confirming what Laurel said was true.

"HA! I KNEW IT!" Laurel yelled triumphantly. Felicity and Thea just turned and looked at each other, horrified.

"Oh calm down, I'd never do anything to hurt Ollie. He's my friend, and he's saved my life a number of times now as Arrow. Do you guys really think I'll tell?" Laurel scoffed.

"Oh boy." Felicity said as she rubbed her hands down her face, and turned back to the computer as it chimed at her that it was finished downloading. "Well, here it goes."


	11. Chapter 11

A/N: I've been putting this chapter together in my head for a while. Due to busy days and nights, and being down the shore and such, it's just taken forever to get you the chapter. Another problem is that I can't stop READING some of these other fics I follow. No willpower. Either way, I wholeheartedly apologize. I'm working on it. Sorry. Also…disclaimer: I did not edit this. Also…disclaimer #2: It took me like 3 days to finally finish this. Stupid work.

CHAPTER 11 "Well Then…There You Go"

After a sandwich, 4 over the counter ibuprofens, and 2 hours, Felicity had manage to sort through all relevant data on her father up until the time where he drops off the map. She also managed to hack into her mother's hospital's mainframe and put an order of extra protection on her mom. Just in case Slade's anger with her father extended to her mentally ill mother. Felicity double-checked her mom's latest charts, and saw that there was no major change on her condition. Other than the expected incremental deterioration of course, this was standard for her condition. Not that her condition was incredibly clear to begin with: "Progressive Non-Environmental Dementia-Early Unknown Onset". Basically, a complicated way of saying "She was born this way, but we don't know why or what to do about it."

Felicity hated the diagnosis. It was mysterious in a way that made her very uncomfortable. It's not like she had been in a position heading into college to get her mother all the best doctor's in the world. They didn't even have health insurance at the time. Felicity made sure to do extra projects, and to stay in the smallest, crappiest apartments to make sure her mom could be in a decent facility. Once she started at QC, she was able to get her first decent place since she was a little girl. Not that she ever wants to go back there after what happened.

She had zoned out while printing out the info for Oliver. She was thinking a lot about her past and her suddenly grim future. Tuning out the pain and Laurel's excessive questions was taking a toll. Her hearing was getting better and it was bittersweet. Finally, after what seemed like forever on the archaic equipment, Felicity printed out the last page and stood up to go put it in a file. Thea's hand lightly touched her shoulder as she stood.

"Hey, I'll get it. Why don't you sit down?" Thea said softly.

"What?" Felicity turned to see who it was that had touched her and instantly assumed what the girl had said.

"Oh, no it's fine, I need to move around. Thanks." She gave Thea a weak, tired smile, and moved over to the printer to get everything together. She'd even found an old college photo from when her father got his doctorate. Her mother had never mentioned he was a doctor. Felicity wondered if he was helping people even if he couldn't stay with them. She shook those thoughts out of her head. She couldn't afford to have lingering affections toward her wayward father, who couldn't take the pressures of a sick wife and left his only daughter to get abused. She couldn't let herself think about him like that. Especially since something that he did obviously pissed off Slade Wilson enough to go after her. How random is that? Slade Wilson? Her dad dropped off the map over a decade ago and somehow, some way, he managed to royally offend some psychopath who had just HAPPENED to be on an island with her billionaire, castaway, vigilante boyfriend. Felicity just sighed, and hoped that everything she was able to dig up helps their mission somehow. If she didn't figure this out, then they'll always be a step behind Slade, and nothing will be able to stop him.

Back over at the couch, Laurel expressed her concerns to Thea, as Roy tried to nod off on the armchair, while ignoring all the girltalk.

"How do you think she's doing? That's a lot to take in so quick? She barely said a word since she started hacking." Laurel whispered.

"She's resilient. I know she's usually quiet when she's focused, but she did seem extra spacey today. It's probably just the pain, or the subject matter. I don't push her anymore, she likes her privacy when it comes to this type of thing." Thea tactfully warned. Basically, she wanted to make sure Laurel didn't try to press Felicity to talk. Thea was just starting to gain Felicity's trust when she almost pushed her away before the explosion. What she needed right now was the unconditional support of a family, NOT a third degree from her boyfriend's lawyer ex-girlfriend.

"Got it. She does seem…reserved." Laurel added.

"She has every reason to be. Wouldn't YOU be in her position?" Thea raised an eyebrow at Laurel, conveying every underlying thought to her in that one moment. Laurel just gave her a slow, knowing nod and looked back at Felicity just as she was turning to head back to the couch.

"OK. I got everything I can find. I hope it's enough. We'll really have to pour through everything when they get…" At that they hard the door unlock and all turned to greet who they assumed would be Lance, Oliver, Sara, and Diggle. What they got was the sight of boxes with legs. There were cords and electronic equipment spilling out over the top of each box as the missing teammates walked them through the door into the living room.

Everybody who had been in the apartment just stood. Jaws open and confused. All until Felicity noted a familiar monitor in the box Sara was carrying. As it was set down on the living room floor Felicity just gasped in happy surprise.

"MY BABIES! YOU GOT THEM BACK!" she immediately headed over to Sara and hugged her tight. Then as soon as Oliver put down his box she went over to him and kissed him full on the lips.

"THANK you! I love you for doing this!" She added.

"Achem" Diggle and Lance had their arms crossed behind Oliver.

"I love you guys too. Thank you so much! I can do SO much more with these." She hugged them both gently, realizing she'd overexerted herself in the excitement.

"Why are you up?" Oliver half seriously scolded at Felicity.

"That's my bad." They heard Laurel say from the couch behind them. The rest team all whipped around. They hadn't even noticed her with Hurricane Felicity buzzing all around. The last couple of minutes.

"WHAT THE HELL ARE _YOU_ DOING HERE?!" Oliver yelled unexpectedly, he was on the verge of panic.

Laurel was stunned silent for a few seconds before she got her bearings, not appreciating being spoken to like that in her own father's house.

"EXCUSE ME!? This is MY father's house! I have a key Ollie! Imagine my surprise when I found 'Team Arrow' making themselves at home. I'm not upset I was just…startled."

"Laurel! Why didn't you call….wait….'Team Ar…" Lance stopped mid-sentence realizing everyone else had already caught up. By the furious look on Oliver's face and the shocked and ashamed look on Sara's face, this was not going to end well.

There was a pause. "She just guessed Ollie. She knows everything. She just wants to help." Thea stated quietly from behind Laurel.

Oliver turned to Thea as she spoke, then jerked his head back around to Felicity who was at his side. Felicity just gave him a tired look that said 'Let it go for now….please.' and he softened a little. After another moment of silence, he just gently placed his hand on Felicity's arm and sighed.

"Are you ok? You should still be in bed." He tried to shift his focus onto Felicity as to not think about his anger. She just nodded. "When did you wake up?"

"I…" Laurel started, but Felicity interrupted immediately.

"About noon. I heard Laurel come in. She wanted to take Detective Lance to lunch. Gave us both quite a shock to say the least." She laughed it off. If Oliver knew the whole truth it would make matters worse for everyone, and she really didn't feel like defending Laurel.

"Your back?" He asked. His eyes revealed all the questions he wanted to ask, but couldn't because of present company. He wanted to know if she was ok after the previous night. To make sure he didn't hurt her too badly. His guilt was still raging behind his blue eyes. Felicity gave him a soft, reassuring look.

"I'm ok. It's fine. I'm _fine_." She stressed, trying to convey everything with a look. He seemed to calm a little more at that. Not completely, probably never completely.

"Oh! Felicity! You're notes!" Thea reminded, mainly to get the attention off of the current awkward topic. She didn't want Laurel to start questioning again , it would only serve to make Felicity uncomfortable and to make Oliver angrier.

"YES!" She yelled and she fist pumped a little too hard. "Ow. Right. Oliver, while you guys were gone I accessed my internet cloud server and downloaded everything on my father I could find…" Felicity said, she tried to stay matter of fact about it. Business as usual. But Oliver could see through that it was affecting her. He put his hand on he arm bracing himself to tell her the difficult news from the previous night.

"Wait...there's some more infor…" Oliver went to explain, before but she abruptly cut him off.

"I've already been brought up to speed about yesterday." She put her hand up to stop him from talking about it further. She wasn't ready to fully discuss it with him, or anyone, yet.

"That's why I downloaded everything. I have the file printed out…" She walked over to the table to pick up the packet and handed it to Oliver, as he slowly started to flip through it page by page. She rambled on because it made her feel slightly exposed.

"Oliver Queen. Meet Anthony Smoak. I didn't wanna really give you guys anything until I had _everything_. This file is complete, right up to the day he dropped off the map, about a decade ago. After that, I found zip. Sorry. But with my babies, I might be able to track down some sort of alias or maybe a death cer…or…something else that might explain why…" She rambled until Oliver abruptly and unexpectedly cut her off.

"WHOA!" Oliver said loudly and Felicity (and a couple others) jumped, startled.

"Whoa…what?" Felicity was almost afraid to ask.

"Son of a bitch!" Oliver exclaimed again flipping back and then forward again in the file folder.

"What is it? You're freaking me out." Felicity said even more tense than before. She peered around his arms and stood on her tip toes to try and see what he was looking at. "Yeah? That's him from college. He just got his doctorate there…" She added.

"Damn it…" Olivier added one last time, as he angrily yanked the picture out and shoved it towards Sara's direction hastily. She took the picture apprehensively and confused. But as soon as she saw it, she immediately paled and dropped it to the floor like it was on fire. She followed directly after, dropping to her knees on the living room carpet. Sara looked up at Felicity then back over to Oliver. They stared for just a moment as everyone was silent…especially Felicity, whom at this point had stopped breathing out of fear, nerves, and anticipation.

"Well then…" Sara took a deep shuttered breath. "There you go…" She said in shock, before quickly putting her hand over her mouth like she was going to be sick. She then stared at the carpet as Lance rushed over to her to make sure she was ok.

Finally, Diggle, being the bravest and least patient, spoke up as calm as possible.

"Who's in the picture?" Digg stated the obvious question. Everybody whipped their eyes to Oliver. Everybody, but Felicity. Her eyes locked to Sara's horrified face. Sara looked up at her and did the same. Felicity had an inkling as to what Oliver was going to say next, just from hearing a few stories. She didn't want him to say it. She wanted to take all of it back and just be oblivious. She hated being as smart as she was. Why did she have to remember everything? Why couldn't her father just be some coward, doctor who was too busy or selfish to take care of her and her sick Mom? Why did it have to be…

"Dr. Ivo."

Felicity closed her eyes as he said the words and let out a sharp exhale. 'Damn it.'

She accidentally said her thoughts aloud, but no one laughed.


	12. Chapter 12

A/N Sorry guys, we're having a audit at work so the last few weeks we've spent trying to get everything here perfect and it has left me with very little downtime. This week is the actual thing, but I'm gonna leave ya'll with something short for the time being. I know it's not much but it's my best for now :)

CHAPTER 12 "Setting Them Up"

Felicity was in the far corner of the living room with Laurel setting up the computer equipment that the team had brought over. They'd been over there for hours working quietly into the early evening. Laurel wasn't Felicity's favorite person by far, but she needed someone good with computers and she couldn't stand to be around Sara at that very moment. So Laurel it was. Felicity knew very little of the backstory between Sara, Ivo and Oliver. From what she DID know, and the from look on Sara's face, she could piece together that there were so many more terrible, heartbreakingly painful stories. None of which she wanted to think about right now. With Laurel helping with the lifting and connections Felicity needed, their conversation was kept to instructions by Felicity, and a few questions about equipment from Laurel. Felicity had made sure to bluntly suggest to Laurel that they nix any, and all personal conversation that afternoon. Laurel thankfully obliged, just nodding her head in agreement. Laurel understood what it was like finding out something life-altering with a bunch of people staring.

Oliver couldn't stop glancing back at them. For a couple hours at first, he and Thea painfully went over some of the funeral details for their mother. They had obviously decided to put it off for a few days until they could do it safely. Their mother, with all her faults, deserved a proper memorial, and until the Slade situation was taken care of they wouldn't be able to properly do so. They opted for a very, VERY private and secret internment the next day, and then a more public memorial service when the time was right.

After that, Oliver and Team Arrow (who had already been planning without him), sat down to go over possible hideouts, and targets. They tried to nail down what Slade might be plotting now that they have this new…information…so to speak. As much as Oliver was glancing backwards towards his girlfriend every 30 seconds, Sara was worse. She was openly staring a hole into the back of Felicity's head for most of the time. She barely spoke during the discussion, even though she had the most insight into Dr. Ivo and his original plans. At one point, Oliver had to literally snap his fingers to get her attention. He didn't give her any grief though, after what Ivo had put her through he didn't blame her for being thrown.

At around 7 that evening, the team heard Felicity boot up her computers, and they turned to see the screens flicker to life. They were curious as to what she would find when she started up her search programs for the first time in a while, but hesitant to go over there.

"_Felicity, I…" Oliver started._

"_No!" Felicity interrupted. Everyone was staring at her and she felt like she had just tumbled down into a rabbit hole to another world. They were silent, not knowing what to say. A couple of them just looked confused, but noticed the tension and remained quiet._

"_I'm sorry I just…" Felicity couldn't even figure out what to say. It was one of very few times where she couldn't even ramble. None of the words she knew of the English language were able to be processed at that time. Oliver just gently grazed her arm with his hand, but she pulled away slightly, just enough for him to notice and immediately pull his hand back. She looked at the floor, and brought the back of her hand to her lips to make sure no gibberish came out. She was holding back tears and felt like she was going to be sick. The span of just a few seconds seemed like a lifetime to everyone. Sara was still on the floor, silent tears falling down her face, she also had her hand over her mouth, but she was staring at Felicity. Felicity glanced over at her, and caught her gaze for a split second before immediately becoming overwhelmed and turning to walk away. Diggle caught her ghostly pallor and grabbed her arm gently as she trying to rush by._

"_Hey…" He started, but once she looked up at him and he saw the look in her eyes, he stopped, but still held her arm because she looked like she might faint. _

_Felicity looked at Diggle and received some the silent, understanding support she needed just then. She took a deep breath, taking some of her strength from Digg and exhaled. She immediately turned to the group and looked at a VERY confused Laurel. _

"_Laurel, I need help setting up my computers, you know about that stuff right?" Felicity said, stronger sounding than she had anticipated. She's just glad words came out at that point._

"_Yeah, I did a lot of the light IT work at CNRI." Laurel slowly expressed, not sure what had just happened. Twenty minutes ago Felicity couldn't wait to be away from her, and now she's the one Felicity wants computer help from. _

"_Good, we have a lot of work to do and I can't do a lot of the heavy lifting. You can be my muscle." Felicity turned towards the corner desk and the boxes of equipment, gently letting Diggle's hand slide from her arm._

_Laurel followed silently, walking by Oliver, who stood shocked and unmoving._

"What do you got?" Oliver stated from a few feet behind Felicity, who jumped slightly at his unexpected presence.

She regrouped instantly.

"A whole lot of terrible notifications and a ton of back pain." Is all she stated, all light gone from her voice. It was clear she had shut down.

"Anything that points to Slade?" Oliver was trying to keep it all business for her sake. She appreciated the effort, it was keeping her as calm as possible.

"EVERYTHING that points to Slade. There was a prison break of a large bus carrying 2 dozen prisoners, not to mention a lot of the petty crime has virtually disappeared in a certain part of the Glades. We can assume that Slade has recruited them, either by force or false promises. Luckily, I already had stats set up, so was able to see what area had the huge dip in crime percentages. That's gotta be his base of operations. Another interesting detail is that, where petty crime has gone down in the area, murder has gone up. Most of the cases seem to be low lifes and street thugs. He's getting rid of anyone who doesn't want to join up. Eliminating the competition so to speak. I've set up a search on anything he might try to steal; weapons, big ticket items and such. My system will let me know if anything happens." Felicity recited almost robotically.

Enough time had passed since they last spoke that she was able to keep her emotions in check. She had shut it down for the time being, completely focused on solving the problem at hand and not dwelling on the reason the problem exists.

"That's good intel. You should rest now, it's been a long day and your back…" Oliver suggested quietly, as to not upset her more.

"I'm not letting you guys go out there…" She started rapidly.

"We're not." Oliver stated simply.

"What? What do you mean?" She looked at him for the first time since he'd come over. He looked sincere and tired.

"It's been a long day Felicity. It's almost 8 o'clock. We need to eat something, and get some rest. Tomorrow is going to be even worse." Oliver was solemn. He was right, it had been an incredibly long day. He hadn't fully dealt with his mother's death. Felicity, Thea, and Sara were all teetering on the edge of sanity and full emotional breakdown. They couldn't deal with any more right now. Felicity couldn't deal with any more right now. He knew she'd break eventually, he just wanted t o make sure it wasn't in front of everyone she loved. He would help her through it, he just needed some sort of signal from her. He needed her to let him know what he could do for her. What did SHE need?

"Are you…are you sure you guys aren't going…Don't lie to me." Felicity stated accusingly. They had done it to her before and she didn't want them going behind her back again. Oliver winced when he heard her tone. They had broken her trust last time when she had gotten shot by the arrow. They forced her up and off that metal table too early when she'd found out. They had hurt her.

"We're not going out tonight. Maybe tomorrow, but I'd like to have a moment to worry about my mother first. He's beaten us for now Felicity. Let it go until tomorrow. He won't try anything yet." Oliver insisted.

Felicity just looked in his eyes, not sure what to do. She just wanted to wake up from the nightmare that has been the past few weeks. But then again, if she did, she wouldn't have this relationship she had with the love of her life. Everything they were going through, they would get through it together. She just didn't know how yet. It seemed so unbearable.

"OK." Was all she replied.

"OK?" Oliver repeated, surprised she gave in so easily.

"Yeah, ok. I need to get out of this chair and knock myself out with pain meds. Food, Meds, Bed." Felicity asserted, breaking her gaze with Oliver when feelings started to bubble up again. She started to get up, but winced and flopped back down on the chair.

"Whoa, let's try that a little slower this time, shall we?" Oliver said as lightly as he could muster. She gave him a faint flutter of a half smile and he was satisfied with that.

He crouched down and lightly grabbed her hand to brace, and she put her injured hand on his shoulder and pulled herself up slower and gentler.

"I guess that ibuprofen wore off." She ground out, trying her best to stretch out her sore muscles as she stood.

"Yeah, let's get you some dinner and to bed." He stated.

"Yes please. I just want this day to be over…" She mumbled softly.

"You and me both." He agreed. "You sure you don't wanna talk about it?" Oliver was being brave and dipping his toe in the water.

"No." Felicity replied adamantly. She softened when she looked at him and he gave her a tight lipped half smile. She saw he was trying to put his feelings aside to reassure her and she loved him for it, but it was too soon.

"At least, not yet."

"Whenever you're ready." He replied soothingly, placing his hand on her good shoulder, helping to ease her out of the living room into the kitchen to get a sandwich.

Neither of them had even acknowledged Laurel who had been sitting there in the next chair over just observing. She hadn't had a chance to witness their relationship first hand, and was stunned to see how gentle and caring he could be with the IT girl. Laurel just watched them with one arched eyebrow as they slowly walked off. She noticed they didn't separating their touch for one second. Laurel actually smiled. After everything that happened that day, 50% of which she didn't quite understand.


	13. Chapter 13

A/N I'm BACK! The audit at work is finally over, and my celebratory "celebrating" has subsided for the time being. I'm now ready to focus on my Olicity feels again. It's going to start getting pretty intense methinks. I've had a little time to mull over where I want the story to go and I have a few options. Let me know if you have any preferences. :)

PS: After reading this chapter again and editing it, it's one of my favorites ever. I'm like…really emotional now.

Chapter 13 "Unexpected Gifts"

It was 4 AM. Both Felicity and Oliver were wide awake, trying to pretend to be asleep. Felicity had passed out by 9:30 after grabbing some food and taking a painkiller for her back and shoulder. She had managed to convince Oliver to stay in the room with her. He had protested, not wanting to hurt her again. She argued that everyone now knew not to wake him if he was having a nightmare, and that they could sleep without his arm around her back. He fell asleep for just a few hours, but awoke quietly from a nightmare at around 1 AM.

Felicity had awoken from her drugged stupor around 3, her mind not shutting off about the day's events since then. She hadn't opened her eyes, but could tell Oliver was awake too. Anytime he was asleep he did this adorable little sigh thing every few minutes that she loved. She hasn't heard him once. He's being too quiet and giving himself away.

Oliver knew she wasn't sleeping because, promise or no promise, he knows she would have eventually turned to lay on his chest in her sleep, as always. She was laying conspicuously on her right side facing him, eyes closed. She was being too still, and gave herself away.

Felicity peaked her eyes open to see him staring at her, head resting on his perfectly sculpted arm.

"I knew it." They both whispered at the same time. He even cracked a half smile at her at their jinx. She didn't seem as amused, as she continued to seem somewhat lost in her thoughts. She had a developed a bit of a headache from her still ringing ears, and she put her hand up to her forehead as it throbbed. The stress of the day was coming back to bite her and had started to take it's toll physically.

"Hey, are you alright?" Oliver asked noticing her shift in demeanor.

"I have a headache, it'll go away. I'm just tired. Can't sleep." Felicity sighed quietly.

"I'll go grab you a water." He offered, moving before she could protest.

When he got back she hadn't moved from her spot but had closed her eyes, her other hand now covering her exposed ear. She looked miserable. He didn't blame her. It was a terrible situation they were all in, especially her. He knew she felt her father's guilt on her shoulders. Everyone had seen Sara's face…his face…when they had made the realization. He hadn't had a chance to really discuss it with her yet. He didn't know if or when she would be ready to talk about it.

"Here, drink this, those pills can make you dehydrated and that can give you a headache." He helped her sit up a little so she could drink. He also handed her two light ibuprofen tablets. It made her even more miserable to know he had done that so they could start weaning her off the heavy duty painkillers. No need for heavy narcotics with a few bruised ribs and deep tissue bruises. It's painful but not that serious in the long run. They had only given her the really heavy stuff when Oliver had his freak out, and this past night because of the work she had done all day. Once she was done she carefully flopped back down on the bed exhausted.

He put the glass on the nightstand, and laid down facing her again. Neither of them said anything for a while, just staring at each other with the weight of their thoughts. At one point, she had grabbed his shirt at his chest just to have something to ground her. He put his hand over her arm lightly in silent support, rubbing soft patterns on her uninjured skin with his thumb.

All the sudden she spoke quietly, and without warning.

"Who was it?"

He was taken aback by the vague question, really hoping that she wasn't asking what he thought she was asking.

"Who was what?" He said back apprehensively.

She looked at him intently. "Who killed him? Sara? Slade?" She paused. "Was it you?"

She didn't sound angry, or accusatory. She understood the gravity of what her "father" had done on the island, even if she didn't know the whole story.

Oliver didn't wait, or hold back to answer. She deserved to know without hesitation and he trusted her to understand, as long as he told her the truth.

"It was me." He said softly, but firmly. She closed her eyes as a tear ran down her face from the action. She bit her lip and nodded, but didn't expect him to continue. Felicity knew how much he hated talking about the island.

"I did it so Sara didn't have to. She hadn't killed anyone yet, and it was…" He paused, not sure if he should say the next part. He decided wanted her to understand. She needed to. She opened her eyes, and stared into his soft blue eyes as he remembered that night. She nodded gently for him to continue.

"He…he had already put her through so much, but he knew she cared about him. Sara had…mixed feelings when it came to Ivo. He asked her to put him out of his misery because it was one last way to torture her. It would complete her transformation into the killer that he had trained her to be. He wanted to break her. She almost did it, too, but I took the gun from her… and I shot him. She cried for him, after everything he'd done to her. She cared. She turned into that person anyway, to an extent. To the killer he'd built. But not then. Not because of that. I couldn't let her…"

Felicity had put her fingers up to his mouth to stop his musings. Once he had started, he looked far away, like he couldn't stop. She understood, she really did. She wasn't upset with him. She locked eyes with him and nodded one last time. Felicity then moved her hand from his lips to his cheek, and gently pulled him closer to gently kiss him on the lips. It was short, but meaningful. She had forgiven him. She still loved him. So many thoughts raced through his head as they lay there, foreheads together. They breathed each other in, and let go some of the heavy tension that had been surrounding them throughout the day. Really, since the night before. The cloud over them had lifted. They were back to being…them.

Oliver heard some hushed, yet tense sounding tones from the front room. Then some rustling. He knew it was almost morning, and that Diggle was probably on watch shift. Who could he be talking to, unless Lance or Roy had stayed awake with him? Felicity noticed his furrowed brow as he pulled back from her, she couldn't hear what was going on, but it seemed to concern Oliver so it in turn concerned her.

"What is it?" She asked quietly, wishing the damn ringing in her ears would stop already.

"Something is going on…" He started to reply, but the door opened suddenly, filling to room with blinding light. Felicity winced and shut her eyes, putting her arm over her face. Oliver just turned and sat straight up, arm in front of her protectively. It was Diggle, he sighed in relief. That is until he saw the gun in ready position in Diggle's hand. Felicity slowly opened her eyes again to adjust to the light, and to see what was happening. Her headache was back full force from the sudden light, but she didn't care when she saw Diggle's face.

"What happened?" Oliver asked simply.

Diggle just stood there apprehensively for a second. "Something's going on outside."

"Something like what?" Oliver asked annoyed but worried.

"A couple SUVs, a couple guys…and a woman. We didn't get a visual, but she has dark hair, it might be Rochev."

Oliver was out of the bed and in a shirt by the time Diggle finished. He left on his sweatpants, not caring about looks.

"They came in quick, and right before I came to get you there was a rustling and a thump outside the door. I told Roy to hold until you were out there with us." Diggle stated as Oliver was heading out of the bedroom. He called back to Felicity, more mouthing to her because he didn't want to be loud enough for someone dangerous to hear, just in case. "Stay there."

Lance, Laurel, Thea and Raisa came down the hall at the disturbance, and Oliver put his fingers to his lips to shush them, then pointed towards his and Felicity's room. He wanted the already injured girls to be safe, with an armed guard in case anything went down. With Laurel, he just wanted to make sure she stayed out of harms way (meaning out of the way, but he'd never admit that). Once out in the front room, Roy informed them that someone had knocked, and less than a minute later, he heard the SUVs pull away quickly. Someone knew they were here, they knew it. They weren't safe. Diggle had his gun at the ready. Roy was standing there all super human. Oliver had his bow at the ready, and stood behind the door when Diggle went for the handle. They had heard no sound since the knock on the door, so they had decided to open it carefully.

Digg opened it a crack, foot in the way to make sure no one could bust in, and peaked around the edge gun first. He saw no one to the right, opened the door wider, and cleared the left side of the hall from still inside the door. As he eased out to head into the hall, he almost tripped. He was shocked to look down and see a woman, gagged, with dark hair, laying in a pool of blood on the ground. She wasn't moving or breathing.

Diggle opened the door fully, and motioned towards the other guys. As he crouched down to roll her over, they still hadn't seen her face. He rolled her, he saw a single gunshot to her forehead. They had watched her walk in under her own steam, so the others must have had a silencer and shot her here. Hence the thump. As Diggle looked at her face, it seem haggard, but familiar. He couldn't place it but he had a dreading feeling he'd seen her before. Oliver spoke up first.

"Who is she? Do you know?"

"No, but she seems familiar. She's dead, I think they shot her out here with a silencer, knocked on the door and bolted. They must have known we were here, and knew we'd use caution, giving them time to leave."

"Hey guys? What's that?" Roy asked cautiously from over Diggle's shoulder. They looked at Roy, then followed his line of sight down to her hand, tucked halfway underneath her body.

"Is that stationary?" Oliver asked, now thoroughly confused. "Hand it to me, Roy, go get the others. Tell them it's safe and what's going on."

Roy didn't say a word as he left, happy to be away from the dead lady at the door.

Diggle carefully extracted what looked to be a card from her dead hand, and handed it to Oliver. When Oliver turned it over he saw the front inscription. 'Sympathy In Your Hard Time, Sorry About Your Mother'.

Oliver fumed, it was Slade messing with him. He had killed some poor woman just to get his sick message across, and torture Oliver more. He vaguely heard the others coming into the room, but was so mad all he could focus on was his heartbeat pounding in his ears. He felt Felicity lay a gentle hand on his shoulder opened the card. He read the first few words and his entire demeanor instantly changed. His body went completely stiff as he whipped his head to turn to Felicity. He was too late. She was just glancing down at the body, and he saw all the color drain from her face. He turned to catch her as she let out a heartbreaking, muffled wail into her hand and her knees gave out. Oliver dropped the card, and picked her up immediately, taking her out of the room and back into the bedroom. Everyone else was left confused and stunned by the sudden outburst of emotion from the normally bubbly IT Tech.

Thea walked over, trying to ignore the dead body, and grabbed the card off the ground. She hesitated as she heard the crying from the other room, but somebody had to read it. Thea, too, felt angry and hurt as she read the front inscription. That changed when she opened it. She felt sick to her stomach. Seeming unable to stop herself, she read the whole, disgusting, handwritten note.

"_My Dear Felicity, _

_My deepest sympathies for the passing of your lovely mother. I so enjoyed listening to her detailed ramblings of the torture she inflicted on you as a child. Once her mind was clear and she could remember who you were of course. She was definitely an inventive woman, and had a way with thinking up new and creative ways to torture you without leaving marks or scars. I actually learned some new techniques from her. Of course, she was remorseful of what she did to you after I gave her the antidote to her little…condition. The remorse didn't matter in the long run. Honestly, I was just curious if the antidote would work. Oh she cried, and cried over her actions. She said once that she could remember every inch of your face as she hurt you, as you pleaded for her to come back to you from her insanity. My favorite was that time she found one of the club owners giving you cocaine mixed with sugar on your favorite cookie. She didn't stop him and you wound up sporadically vomiting blood til morning. What were you? 10? Or, maybe it was the time when she purposefully put nuts in your school lunch sandwich, hoping that you would die and she would be rid of you. She had been so disappointed when your school nurse called her from the ER saying they had gotten to you in time. Oh yes. Your mother was an amazingly talented woman, for whom I grew to care deeply. If only because I knew we were kindred spirits. We would both enjoy torturing you, and watching you break over, and over. I'll let you wallow in your grief for a while on this, to prolong the pain. But I'll be back for you soon enough. See you soon Felicity Who._

_In Sincere Hatred,_

_Forever,_

_Uncle Slade"_

On the other side of the page in the card, where the generic store printed inscription was, Thea saw a short shakily written note in different handwriting. It was only three words.

"I'm sorry baby"

Thea was sitting on the floor by the time she was finished, tears streaming down her face as she furiously wiped at them. She wasn't sure if she could ever let Felicity read that. Ever. Thea knew she would have to, but it would be aboslutely devastating.

Half of the group was worriedly watching her grow more upset and angry as she read. The other half was trying to figure out how to proceed with the body at the door. Thea held the card to her chest when she was finished. It took her a moment to come back to real life after reading all of that. Once she did, she snapped back, like a rubber band.

"Don't touch her!" Thea suddenly exclaimed shocking Roy who was right next to her. The others snapped their heads up at the sound.

"Don't. Touch. Her." She repeated through her tears.

"Thea we have to figure out…" Lance started.

She put her hand up to shush him, and stood up with Roy's help.

"Leave her alone…" She said shakily. "She wouldn't want you to…" Thea trailed off, not knowing what to say next.

"Thea, what's going on, do you know who this is? I thought it was just some random lady…" Roy started still confused, as most of them were.

"She…" Thea stopped again, they all waited until she got her bearings. They still thought it was about Moira.

"Just…get this Arrow stuff all cleaned up, and call the cops. DON'T let anybody touch her! Not yet." Thea insisted. The card was still crumpled in her hand, tight against her chest.

"Who is it Thea?" Diggle asked, already having pretty much figured it out.

"It's…it's Felicity's mother. Please…just leave her be." Thea finally choked out to stunned faces as she turned, and hastily walked into the bedroom tracing Oliver's earlier footsteps. Roy stayed behind, knowing he couldn't do anything to help any of them right now.


	14. Chapter 14

Chapter 14 "So What Now?"

Thank goodness for small miracles, Felicity had gotten so little sleep in the last couple of days that she had eventually cried herself to sleep in Oliver's arms. Thea sat on the day bed just looking out the window for a couple of hours while everything went down outside of the room. By some stroke of luck no one came in to the room until 8 am.

It took the boys 45 minutes to clean up the Arrow equipment and hide it in one of their car trucks. They held their breath that no one on the floor would come out of their apartments between 4 and 5 am. As soon as everything was cleaned up, they had Lance call in the murder. He used the excuse that he woke up to go for his morning jog at 5 am with his daughter and found Felicity's mother there. Dead. The police already knew that Oliver, Felicity and Thea were staying there after the explosion due to Oliver's visit to the station the day before, and Roy and Diggle's presence was easily explainable as boyfriend and security. They had managed to hide the note from the police. Diggle stated that Felicity came out of the bedroom and identified the body as her mother before collapsing and going to rest. Everyone their corroborated the story. The cops didn't question at the time, and stated they would need to at least confirm with her the next day sometime. Diggle agreed and after 3 hours the cops took the body and left the crime scene. They had called in favors and put rushes on everything as a favor to "former" Detective Lance and to get on the good side of Oliver Queen. The detective on the case assumed it had everything to do with the bombing and Moira's Queen's murder and simply ordered all information to be sent back to his office for further review.

It seems that they were less concerned with the murder of a poor, mental patient than the murder of a high profile billionaire. The cops were willing to be in and out on the case, easily accepting the word of the group on scene. As appalling as the situation was, Team Arrow was almost grateful of the obvious caste system the Starling PD apparently adhered to. Lance and Laurel went after the cops to the station in order to fill in any gaps in the story. The first person to actually show up Felicity and Oliver's temporary bedroom was Diggle.

When he came in, Oliver was on the bed with Felicity curled in his arms asleep. Her broken glasses were strewn on the bedside table. Thea was sitting on the daybed looking out the window, having long since watched the sunrise and the morning commute begin.

_*knock knock* "Oliver? Felicity?" Thea whispered as she slowly stepped into the room, still crying slightly from her shock out in the front room._

_Oliver just nodded to her and she came in, immediately closing the door behind her._

_Felicity was quietly sobbing into Oliver's neck, he held her firmly as she was curled into a ball on his lap. The shock of everything had pushed her over the edge. She was able to stamp down the emotions of the previous day, but two terrible truths at once ad broken her temporarily and he just let her feel whatever she needed to feel. He wanted to make sure she felt safe and that she was in a private place with family._

_Family. He thought, what family did she have anymore? He hoped that she considered him, Thea, Diggle and Roy family by now. But he knew it didn't compare. _

_Thea walked closer to them and crouched next to the bed staring at Oliver, not Felicity. She knew what Felicity felt, she was feeling the same thing with her own situation. Thea was trying to convey to Oliver the gravity of the situation. He looked at her trying to read his sister without words. He had clearly noticed the stationary in her hands and knew she had read the entire letter. He had not. Looking into her expression he could tell it was even worse than he had expected. Thea looked on for a while as Felicity's sobs grew softer and she finally fell asleep…or maybe passed out from exhaustion. Oliver knew that whatever was written was terrible and he silently conveyed to Thea that he understood, and to let it be for now. He could read it later with Felicity and help her through it. For now, she just needed him to be there._

_They made quite a pair. Both abused, both broken. Both now parentless in their twenties. Oliver watched as his sister, who was in the same boat just walked around the bed, stopping to place a soft kiss on Felicity's head. Thea then staggered tiredly over to the daybed at the window, and proceeded to watch the sunrise for hours. Even Oliver himself had almost fallen asleep to the ambient, muffled noises outside the door until Diggle jerked him and Thea out of their dazes._

"Hey." Diggle whispered, hoping Felicity wouldn't hear him.

Oliver just nodded an acknowledgment in his direction.

Diggle stepped in quietly and closed the door slowly behind him.

"The cops are gone. She'll need to make a quick identification later, but I think they pretty much believed our story. We'll go over it later." Diggle whispered.

Oliver nodded slightly. Diggle glanced over at Thea who hadn't even budged to look at him.

Digg nodded his head towards her once as a silent question to Oliver.

Oliver understood what Digg was asking and shook his head negative very lightly. Thea had not yet shared with him the contents of the note from Slade.

Digg just silently nodded again.

"If you need anything, we're all out here. Sara got here a couple hours ago as well."

"Ok thanks." Oliver replied as Felicity shifted under him. He stopped all movement and noise, not wanting to wake her. It was too late. She was too upset to stay asleep for too long.

Diggle turned around and left quickly, closing the door quietly behind him.

"Hey." Was all Oliver could muster. Both of them emotionally spent, and scarred deeply.

Felicity just huffed out a small breath of air as her red, puffy eyes opened. She was lucid. She could understand what was happening. She remembered every second of the previous night.

Thea looked over noticing the movement between the two. Oliver could clearly tell she had been crying, and thinking hard and long about the previous nights events.

"Thea is here too." Oliver stated, so that Felicity wasn't shocked later.

Felicity just nodded into his chest. She trusted Thea, and wasn't currently concerned about her presence at this sensitive time.

Thea got up slowly off the daybed and crawled onto the actual bed behind Felicity and carefully cradled her from behind, wrapping her arms gently around her waist. Felicity grabbed one of Thea's hands and squeezed it slightly.

"I guess we're all the same boat now huh?" Felicity said. It wasn't a normal Felicity awkward comment or joke. It was eerily serious and honest.

" to be us." Thea responded. At that, Felicity squeezed her hand and pulled it tighter.

They laid there quietly for a few minutes, listening to the muffled, indecipherable voices outside.

Oliver was surprised that Thea had the nerve to speak up so quickly. She put her hand on Felicity's head and spoke gently to her.

"Felicity, there was a note."

That's all Thea needed to say. Felicity immediately tensed and gripped hard on whatever and whomever she had been holding at the time.

"It's not going to be now. Now we can just….be. But sooner or later, you should read it." Thea said firmly, but supportively.

Felicity was quiet for a few moments.

"Did anyone.." Felicity started.

"NO!" Thea stated emphatically. "No, I'm the only one who read it. And it will stay that way as long as you want. The cops don't know about it. Oliver hasn't even read it all the way through yet."

Felicity let out a shaky, thankful breath. She couldn't imagine what could be in that note. As much as she didn't want Thea to bare the burden of the words alone, Felicity was glad it was her and not someone like Diggle or Oliver. Thea would understand, she knew it. Thea got her and for some reason, Felicity trusted her.

Felicity nodded and decided sooner was better than later. But she couldn't just jump right in, she needed to feel it out first.

"Did my mother say anything?" Was the first thing she asked.

Thea gently turned Feliicty's head towards hers, but it was clear Felicity wouldn't be able to look her in the eye, she left it alone and just answered.

"Only a little bit directly. Mostly it was through…Slade." Thea answered honestly.

"What did she say?" Felicity sounded more broek than they had ever heard her.

"She said that she was sorry, and she called you baby."

Felicity's breath hitched. She hadn't been called that by her mother since she was very small. Since before her last conversation with her father. Before her mother had completely lost it.

Closing her eyes to compose herself, she continued.

"Did she suffer?"

Thea thought, but answered quickly and sincerely.

"Emotionally? Yes. But physically, no I don't think so."

Felicity nodded slowly, opening her eyes finally.

"I need to read it, don't I?"

Thea looked away toward the window again. She didn't want to nod 'Yes', but it happened against her will.

Felicity could read Thea's face, she knew it was bad. The only thing she couldn't figure out was if she wanted Oliver to know what it said.

"Thea, should I have Oliver in here with us while I read it?" Felicity asked.

She was literally unable to make decisions about this situation by herself at this point. Thea had the most information, and she trusted Thea to do what was right for her.

Thea snapped her head back and looked Felicity in the eyes, then looked up at Oliver's unassuming, pained face.

Finally she answered.

"He should be here, but read it for yourself. The you can make your own decision."

It was the most diplomatic answer she could think of at the time. What was right for everyone.

"Will you stay?" Felicity asked in a voice stronger than she thought possible at the time.

"Anything you need. I'm more angry than anything at this point anyway." Thea admitted.

Felicity shot her a half smile and sat up on the bed with some help.

Her and Thea walked over to the day bed and sat. As Thea handed her the note, Oliver stayed on the other side of the bed as to give them some space.

As Felicity carefully took the note into her hands, and meticulously read it over word for word, her expression became shock at first, then confused, then stoney and cold. Oliver had never seen all of those reactions at once before. It was terrifying to see on his girlfriend's face. It was so unlike her. He knew she was finished by the sudden flying piece of paper. Felicity had thrown the card, then stood up and taken the pillow off the daybed and thrown that across the room. Lastly, she walked swiftly over to the lamp on the nightstand and thrown it out the window into the alley before collapsing to the groud in a fit of tears. Thea had wrapped her arms around her directly after the lamp incident and held her tight as they both dropped. Thea also shedding a number of tears in the process.

As Oliver headed over, Thea held one hand up with a sign to stop. He halted abruptly and just stood in the middle of the room watching the two women sob into each other. As the door to the bedroom busted open loudly, he yelled at whoever is was to get out. He didn't even bother to look up, but he heard the door slam back shut, not even a blip on the girls radar.

Oliver took this as a sign that he probably would not know what was in the note that day. He didn't care as long as Felicity had confronted it and could now start to heal from the damage done.

He only said one thing, after a few minutes of sitting on the edge of the bed staring at them on the floor.

"It's not even close to over is it?"

He got no answer. He wasn't expecting one. He just watched as Thea slowly and quietly rocked Felicity back and forth on the bedroom floor.

A/N I wrote this 2 nights ago, I just didn't have wifi to upload it. Also I was drunk. I'm sorry if it has mistakes, I went through it but don't trust myself hahaha.

JAG


	15. Chapter 15

CHAPTER 15 "It's On."

After Felicity's outburst and the subsequent private breakdown, the three were quiet for a while. Felicity wasn't stupid, in fact she was a genius. She knew that she was going to have to pull it together and identify her mother, and fast. They had gotten away with a few hours, but she had to get a shower, get dressed, and get to the station. Or the morgue. Or wherever her mother's body had been taken. Her mother's body. That really freaked her out. The topic of her mother had always been this mixed ball of secret pain, love and emotions. She was unwilling to share most of the time, and had shared more in the last couple of days with Thea, and kind of with Oliver, than anyone since her teenage years. Slade. It was him. He tortured her. He had cured her? How did he even know what she had? Let alone cure her? That part led her tumbling down a mystery rabbit hole that she needed to solve. She wanted to know what he was up to, and why he seemed to know more about her family than she did. It was time to rally. His rampage had begun, but now it was her turn. He wasn't going to have all the fun.

When did she become this person? When did start to think like Slade? All of the guards, Moira, her mother. He hurt her, he hurt Thea and Oliver, and Sara and Diggle. Even Raisa, who was just cooking and cleaning and doing her job. He had run them all out of their home. He had put the Lances in danger. Now Laurel knew about Oliver, and knew more about Sara than Sara would have ever preferred. It wasn't over yet, but by the end of this, Slade would be dead, she would make sure of it. Felicity didn't care at whose hands, but he needed to be gone. The threat needed to end. It was all too much, after Merlyn, and the explosion she was injured, and tired, and just wanted to sleep for a week. But she didn't care about all that right then. All she cared about was ending Slade's reign of terror anyway possible. She would find a way.

Felicity suddenly stood up from her place at the end of the bed startling Oliver and Thea. She walked over to the closet and grabbed a towel and swiftly walked to the door.

"Felicity…what…?" Oliver started.

She just opened the door, glanced back at him, then closed it heading to the spare bathroom to shower and prepare for the rest of the terrible day.

ARROWARROWARROWARROWARROWARROWARROW

The Lances and Diggle and Roy were in the front room looking over maps of the city trying to figure out where Slade could have moved and had time to go grab Felicity's mother, cured her, then headed to their location. There had to be some sort of medical facility right? They didn't know what the cure entailed. Sara had stayed quiet most of the time on the other side of the room o Felicity's system. The others were kind of annoyed since it seemed she had the most info on what had gone down between Slade and Felicity's family. They could really use her help. But she had her own objective, with her own information, and she wasn't about to reveal anything to anyone without talking to Felicity first. Felicity deserved it. After all the suffering she had been through, through no fault of hers, Sara felt like Felicity should get all the information before everyone else. After that, if Felicity wished, Sara would share what she knew with everyone else. If she thought it would help them find Slade faster she would have pushed Felicity a little bit, but she truly believed it wouldn't help them with the search, it was only background information.

"Whoa!" She heard her father say after a loud noise. She turned to see a flash of blonde hair go down the hall to the bathroom and then heard a second door slam.

"whoa…" She said quietly to herself as Oliver and Thea came rushing out of the bedroom halfway following Felicity, and halfway trying to piece together what had just happened.

They all heard the shower go on.

"Well, I guess she's ready to get going?" Roy asked, mostly to himself, as everyone else just looked at each other.

Oliver opted to let it go for now, at least she wasn't throwing things or crying on the floor. A marked improvement, although he wasn't sure if it was the right way to approach what was happening. It wasn't his brain and he couldn't deal with things for her.

He walked into the front room followed by Thea.

"Where are we?" He directed at Diggle.

"We've got nothing man. Without Felicity and her searches and huge brain, we are literally working off paper maps and Lance's old shit laptop." Diggle answered impatiently.

Sara had since turned back around at "Felicity's" makeshift desk. Oliver noticed, and walked over to see some schematics of a freighter (he could only guess which one). As he looked to the second screen he only caught a glimpse of what seemed like DNA models and medical records. He didn't catch names before Sara closed everything out, sensing his presence.

"What are you working on?" Oliver asked, a little confused.

"None of your business, Ollie." Sara said shortly, before getting up and heading to the back bedroom and also slamming the door. Why were the women in his life all doing that all the sudden.

"Ooooh kayyyy" Oliver said to himself as he walked back to the others.

"We should all get ready to go. I'll have to take Felicity to the station to identify…And everybody else should get back to real life. Thea said that Slade said he was leaving it all aloe for now. Let's let him. We'll regroup and come back stronger, and hit him before he knows what we are doing." Oliver suggested.

Everyone looked shocked, like he was giving up.

"Relax, I'm not stopping our searches, I'm just trying to keep up the façade of, you know…normal humans. Queen Consolidated must be in freefall with me in hiding and Mom…" Oliver choked on those words.

"Anyway, we have to get our bearings, and train, and…we need to have Mom's private memorial." He finished. Thea looked away, she had thought a lot about everything while in hiding and in the room with Oliver and Felicity all morning.

"Ollie's right. We need to get our shit together. I'm going to get ready and head to the funeral home. If Slade wants me he can find me there. We aren't hiding out here for the rest of our lives until he decides to attack us. We're putting the Lances in danger for no reason, and quite frankly, I can't handle anyone else dying because of us. I get next in the shower." Thea demanded, it seems Felicity's sudden surge of motivation and strength had rubbed off on her. They had had their few hours to let it all go, and now they were back to the strong, solid, independent women they had always been. Thea whipped around much like Felicity had done earlier and headed to the back bedroom to grab clothes. When she opened the door, Sara was in there sitting on the bed staring at a picture of her mother on Lance's nightstand, not moving, or blinking.

"Oh, sorry, I was just trying to make a dramatic exit. I'm just grabbing my clothes then heading into the shower after Felicity. We are attempting pretend to be bad ass…like you." Thea rambled.

"How am I supposed to talk to her about all this?" Sara asked, not entirely to Thea, just to…the room.

"Talk to who about what?" Thea sat on the bed, not too close to Sara, but close enough for companionship.

"I….so much happened…I know so much. Oliver doesn't even…" Sara trailed off, not fully making sense, but just trying to work it out.

"She been through so much, I don't know if this will help her or hurt her." Sara continued, still not looking at Thea.

There was a quiet silence for a minute before Thea spoke up.

"If you were in her position. Not knowing the full story…would you want someone to explain? This is her family. HER family. It directly involves her, am I correct?"

Sara nodded at the floor. Wincing slightly, remembering the freighter and everything that happened there.

"Then you should tell her, she'll appreciate the closure. Just be honest, about everything. About the facts, and about your feelings." Thea suggested.

Sara snapped her head up to look at Thea.

"I can't, talk about that…about…my feelings. I've buried them for years for a reason." She looked back at the floor again. "I can't bring all that back up again. I can't."

"Listen to me, Felicity knows a little tiny bit about what you may or may not have gone through…from experience. Obviously not physically, to the extent that you and Oliver have gone through. I don't know all that. But I know…things. Very vague, seemingly very painful things that she has gone through. And I know there is SO much more that I'm missing, that she hasn't told us. But, she's going to need someone other than Oliver to open up to about those things. If you're honest with her. And I mean BRUTALLY honest…then maybe you can help each other move past some of it." Thea explained, vague enough to hint at the torture Felicity went through as a child, but not giving anything away or betraying confidences.

Sara slowly looked up to Thea again as she was speaking. She searched Thea's eyes for the words between the lines, trying to get at what Thea was saying. Once she realized what Thea was saying, she stood. Just stood. Didn't move. Thea was looking at her, pleading to understand without further information. Sara had clearly already figured out the hints, but was curious as to what details Thea could be dancing around. It's clear Thea had specifics, but she understood that they needed to be revealed by Felicity herself, in trust. Sara nodded slowly at Thea, and abruptly left the room.

ARROWARROWARROWARROWARROWARROWARROWARROWARROW

Felicity ran the hot water over her aching, tired body. It felt like she hadn't had a proper shower in ages, even though she had snuck one the night of the bombing. As the hot water soothed her back, and the cut over her eye stung, she was reminded that she was in fact alive. Alive and kicking. Ready to heal, and to go after Slade. She didn't particularly care what happened to him, as long as he answered to his crimes. To a the hurt he had inflicted.

Sure she wanted him dead. She wanted justice for her and for Oliver's Mothers. But almost just as much, she was hoping he would lose everything. His power, his family, his soul. That he could rot away somewhere without the Mirakuru and suffer for the rest of his days for what he had done.

"YES!" She fist pumped in the air.

"OW!" She was brought back to reality by her bruise.

That was it! The Mirakuru! THAT was his strength, AND his weakness! He would be human without it! She needed to synthesize a cure! Well, maybe not her specifically, but someone who knows bio stuff more than her. She was passable, but not the scientist they needed. She would find somebody. She was Felicity Meghan Smoak! If it was on the internet, she find ANYTHING! And if her…her mother…was at the morgue, then they wuld be doing a autopsy and they would find whatever drug Slade pumped her with, giving her a lead to try and track him. Today, she would deal with her life, and tomorrow, she would start bringing Slade down, one internet search at a time.

There was a knock at the door, but before she was abe to yell at whoever it was, Sara came in and closed the door behind her.

Felicity let out a little surprised and embarrassed yelp. Although the shower curtain was solid and Sara could only see Felicity's face as she poked it out from behind, Felicity still seemed self-conscious.

Sara just stood looking at her for a few seconds.

"We need to talk." Sara said firmly and simply, before she lost her nerve.

"Umm um uhhh ok, can we like…later?" Felicity stumbled out.

"Not here. Get ready, we're leaving. I'm taking you somewhere." Sara said intensely, actually scaring Felicity a little bit.

"But the police sta…" Felicity started.

"This comes first." Sara stated firmly, leaving no room for question.

Felicity just nodded in two jerks before Sara quickly headed back out of the room as quickly as she'd come.

'What was that about?' Felicity thought, she would have put it together if she wasn't wrapped up in her new plan and epiphany. She quickly rinsed herself off and got out the quickly get herself together.

A/N: Anybody else get epiphanies in the shower? Just me? And apparently my version of Felicity? K Bye.


End file.
